Review: Suburbicon

Image courtesy of Paramount Pictures.

There's a whole lot of talent involved in "Suburbicon," a movie with two stories that never quite successfully coalesce, but the results are, unfortunately, middling. This is a film that can't decide whether it's a satire, straightforward thriller or socially conscious period piece.

The film's director is George Clooney, an actor who has proven that he has talent behind the camera, and two of the picture's four screenwriters are Joel and Ethan Coen. The cast includes Matt Damon, Julianne Moore, Oscar Isaac and a bunch of other great character actors. And yet, "Suburbicon" never truly gels.

The picture opens with an ad for the titular town and gives an annotated history of the blossoming of the suburb. The film is set in the late 1950s and as the story opens, a black family is moving into the town of Suburbicon, much to the dismay of the town's predominantly racist population. One of the film's few funny jokes is during the prelude, during which the town is referred to as diverse, which we learn means that white families have moved there from New York, Mississippi and Ohio.

One of the many issues with "Suburbicon" is that, other than a few characters, nearly every person who appears onscreen is repulsive - to an extent that seems near impossible. The film's protagonist, Nicky (Noah Jupe), who lives next door to the black family, is prompted by his mother and aunt to befriend the new neighbor's son. Meanwhile, the rest of the block takes up a vigil of banging drums and other racket outside the black couple's home to scare them away.

Near the beginning of the film, a tragedy strikes. Two nasty men break into Nicky's home, tie up his mother (Julianne Moore), aunt Margaret (also Julianne Moore), Nicky and his father, Gardner (Matt Damon), and knock them all out with chloroform. However, nothing appears to be stolen and the entire scene comes off as fishy. Nicky's mother, who is wheelchair-bound, dies as a result and the boy's uncle vows to find out who was involved in the home invasion.

Nicky begins to sense something is up shortly afterward when Margaret moves in to his house and takes up with his father, who becomes increasingly nasty. In fact, I don't believe I've ever seen Damon play such an outright villain. His character in "The Talented Mr. Ripley" comes off as a Boy Scout in comparison. Moore's aunt also gives Nicky a creepy vibe and it begins to appear as if the boy could be in danger himself.

One of the biggest problems with "Suburbicon" is its attempt to juggle the story involving the murder of Nicky's mother and his growing distrust of his father with the story of the black couple being taunted by Nicky's racist neighbors. At times, it feels like two films being blended together that merely share a similar setting and era, but not much else.

Also, the scenes involving the tormented couple are meant to be moving and anger-inducing - which they are - while the other story is occasionally humorous, but mostly dark and in the manner of the Coens' debut, "Blood Simple." In other words, it doesn't blend well. It's only when Oscar Isaac shows up as an unscrupulous insurance adjuster that "Suburbicon" is made more lively. Otherwise, the film is a blend of tones and concepts that never come together convincingly.

Clooney has shown that he has an eye as a director for period pieces - most notably, "Good Night and Good Luck," but also the decent "Monuments Men" and "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind." But his latest didn't work for me and it's his least successful outing behind the camera.

Review: The Square

Image courtesy of Magnolia Pictures.

Ruben Ostlund's "The Square" is an occasionally funny, often frustrating and frequently too obvious satire of the art world that, somehow, won the Palm d'Or at this year's Cannes Film Festival. The picture is a follow-up to the director's previous Cannes favorite, "Force Majeure," a much funnier and sharper satire of bourgeoise foibles.

There's a fair amount to admire in "The Square," especially the performances by Claes Bang as art director Christian, around whom much of the film's action revolves, and Elisabeth Moss as an American journalist who sleeps with Christian after having interviewed him. But many of the film's targets are too easy and the picture, at times, feels reactionary.

The movie opens with Christian, who runs the operations of a gallery known as the X-Royal Museum, stopping to help a young woman from being attacked by a man on the street, only to find out that the whole scene was a scam and his wallet has been stolen. Meanwhile, people on the street hold up signs and ask passersby for subscriptions to social services, while a few feet away homeless people are sleeping - or maybe dead - with no one paying them any mind.

Meanwhile, Christian and his work cohorts are debuting a new exhibition known as Square, which is a box surrounded by glowing light strips. The exhibit is intended to be a "safe space," combining art and sociological study, and Christian must come up with a way to relay the exhibit's message to the public. Unfortunately for him, he brings in two exaggeratedly obtuse millennials who come up with a ridiculous advertising concept for the Square involving a little girl being blown up - as in detonated - inside it. For some reason, Christian agrees to the concept and soon finds himself in a PR nightmare.

Simultaneously, Christian enlists the help of several work friends to carry out a mission in which he delivers an accusatory letter to every single mailbox in a building after he discovers that the people who stole his wallet are among the tenants. Miraculously, his wallet is returned, however, he is now plagued by a young boy who tells him that his letter caused his parents - who assumed that the boy stole the wallet - to punish him.

Some of these scenes are amusing. One involving Moss's character bringing Christian back to her apartment for sex, which involves a live ape and a tug of war involving a condom, becomes hilariously awkward, especially after she confronts him later at his museum. Other sequences are just flat-out awkward, such as one in which Tourette syndrome is utilized for laughs or another during which Christian agrees to pay for a homeless woman's meal, only to have her suddenly become picky in regards to what she'll eat.

The piece de resistance of the film, if you will, involves a banquet held by the museum, during which a performance artist takes his aggression a bit too far, resulting in the guests attacking him. However, the point of this sequence appears to be just how far the guests at the museum will allow the scene to play out before intervening. Much like the film's aforementioned early scenes in which people pass by the homeless without noticing them, the picture's sociological observations are, well, a little too obvious.

In the 1960s and 1970s, filmmakers such as Luis Bunuel and Pier Paolo Pasolini often created furiously hilarious attacks on bourgeoise attitudes and lifestyles. During the past few decades, director Michael Haneke has made a few such films - for example, "Funny Games," of which I was not a fan, and "Cache," which I thought was terrific - that have covered similar ground. Yorgos Lanthimos' "Dogtooth" was also a highly inventive film exploring such concepts.

But two recent films - Lanthimos' "The Killing of a Sacred Deer" and "The Square" - are films in that vein that give off the vibe of sneering at liberal societies and making easy targets of them. The titular art piece in Ostlund's film appears to satirize the concept of what right wing commentators might call "PC culture." And in both "Sacred Deer" and Ostlund's film, the protagonists are both flawed men who are, perhaps, out of touch with the lives of the less fortunate, but ultimately attempt to do the right thing. And for that, they are castigated.

In the film, much like Eli Roth's "The Green Inferno" - I know, an odd comparison - do gooders are seen as foolish. But none of the films provide better alternatives - other than to take easy potshots. "The Square" is a well made, well acted and occasionally amusing film, but it's not as clever as its makers seem to think it is. It's certainly not a bad movie - and a few sequences are examples of bravura filmmaking - but I'm a little surprised that this picture took Cannes' top prize.

Review: The Killing Of A Sacred Deer

Image courtesy of A24.

Yorgos Lanthimos' "The Killing of a Sacred Deer" is the type of film for which I admired the filmmaking more than the content itself. The film begins as a Greek myth as told by Stanley Kubrick before becoming a Greek myth as told by Michael Haneke or Lars Von Trier at their most shocking. That's not to besmirch the latter two filmmakers - both of whom have made more than a few films that I adore - but Lanthimos is clearly attempting to emulate some of European cinema's enfants terribles with his latest, which often comes across as a picture that wants more than anything to be controversial and unsettling.

This intent is made clear from the picture's first image - a long-held, grotesque close-up of a heart beating during an operation being conducted by Steven Murphy (Colin Farrell), a surgeon in an undisclosed American city. Something seems off by Steven's interactions with his family - he holds conversations with his children, Bob (Sunny Suljic) and Kim (Raffey Cassidy), that are clinical and cold, while sex with his wife, Anna (Nicole Kidman), involves her pretending to be anaesthetized while he does his business.

Even more oddly, Steven meets on the sly with a teenage boy named Martin (Barry Keoghan, of "Dunkirk"), although there's nothing particularly salacious about their relationship. The two mostly meet at diners, where Steven picks up the check, or take walks by the waterfront, where Steven often plies Martin with gifts. As it turns out, Martin's father died on the operating table under Steven's care some years before and the surgeon, although not likely negligent, appears to feel guilt over the matter.

Things take a turn for the extremely strange when, suddenly, Steven's family members begin to lose feeling in their limbs - first, Bob can't get out of bed, although Steven's colleagues can't figure out exactly what is wrong with the boy. Martin informs Steven that to set things right regarding his father's death, Martin must choose one of his family members to kill - or all of them will gradually lose feeling in their limbs, stop eating, start bleeding from the eyes and then die. Shockingly, this begins to happen as Steven attempts to figure out a plan of action.

There are some interesting ideas to be found in Lanthimos' picture, but they are - unfortunately - overshadowed by the director's seeming desire to provoke and outrage his audience above all else. Also, Keoghan's character is, from the start, irritating and it's difficult to determine whether this is a matter of performance or how the character was written and directed. The movie culminates in a sequence that wouldn't feel out of place in Haneke's "Funny Games," which is one of the few films in that great director's body of work that I just can't get behind.

Lanthimos has talent, I've no doubt of that. His breakthrough was the bizarro shocker "Dogtooth," which chronicled the story of two parents who convince their children that the outside world is dangerous and, therefore, keep them locked up in their home and fenced-in backyard, where they take part in increasingly disturbing games. Yes, that film also aimed to get under its audiences' skin, but the film was frequently hilarious and more absurdist than punishing and cruel.

The director's follow up was "Alps," which didn't do it for me, and - after that - the acclaimed "The Lobster," which I liked and thought was highly original, even if I didn't love it as much as some others did. "The Killing of a Sacred Deer" is often gorgeously shot - its early tracking shots that follow Farrell eerily through the corridors of his hospital reminded me of the camerawork from "The Shining" - and some of the deadpan humor reminiscent of Lanthimos' earlier works pops up in the first half of the film - most notably, an extremely bizarre non sequitur in which Farrell brings up his daughter's menstruation at a dinner party.

But ultimately, this film is of the type that desperately wants to get a rise out of its audience - at times, to the point that it results more in eye rolls than outrage. This is a filmmaker with a unique visual and narrative style, so it's disappointing that his first film set in the United States comes off as slightly half baked. There's a lot of talent on display in this picture - from Thimios Bakatakis' cinematography to Farrell's committed performance - but it's often at the service of tiresome shock tactics and a concept that doesn't pay off.

Review: Wonderstruck

Image courtesy of Amazon Studios.

To say that "Wonderstruck" is a minor film in the career of Todd Haynes isn't an insult to the picture. Hayne's work from the past 20 years has been near flawless and included one great film after another, including "Safe," "Far From Heaven," "I'm Not There," the TV miniseries "Mildred Pierce" and "Carol." The director's latest may not be in the same league as the aforementioned films, but it's still a stylistically daring, enjoyable and often moving account of two wayward souls with a span of decades between them who connect through a twist of circumstance.

The picture is split up between two time frames - 1927 and 1977. The first section is the most stylistically unique. In it, a young girl named Rose (a fantastic Millicent Simmonds) flees from her oppressive father and high-strung actress mother (Julianne Moore) in New York City and is taken in by her older brother. The section is in black and white and is silent - however, one sequence takes pains to show us that the sequence is taking place during the era of talkies. Haynes' choice to make the sequence silent revolves around Rose being deaf.

In 1977, a young boy named Ben (Oakes Fegley) is mourning the loss of his mother (Michelle Williams), who was killed in a car accident, and flees from his home in Minnesota, where he is cared for by relatives, and heads to New York, where he believes his father is located. Prior to running away, Ben is the victim of an accident that damages his hearing. Once in New York, his wallet is snatched (hey, its the 1970s) and he's befriended by a young Puerto Rican kid named Jamie (Jaden Michael), whose father works in the Museum of National History.

Jaime shows Ben where he can hide out for the night in a nook of the museum while he makes plans to track down his father, whom he believes can be found at a book store for which he found a bookmark among his mother's possessions. Needless to say, Rose and Ben's stories converge - and in a manner that works both narratively and emotionally.

"Wonderstruck" bears some similarities to Martin Scorsese's "Hugo" in that it is also based on a young adult novel, but also in that it shows reverence to an artistic institution - Scorsese's film reveres the preservation of classic films, while Haynes' is an ode to museums. As I'd mentioned, it's not among his best films, but it's an occasionally wise, often charming and visually effective little movie. Rose's sequences are the main draw, but they also merge nicely with Ben's story and, thereby, deepen the meaning of both storylines.

"Wonderstruck" may be a movie about children that is more aimed for adults - but I think it would be a great viewing experience for kids. Unlike many American movies aimed at youngsters, it is intelligent and thematically rich. It's the rare type of movie that I could recommend to viewers much older than myself and much younger.

Review: Marshall

Image courtesy of Open Road Films.

Chadwick Boseman gets another opportunity - after having played Jackie Robinson and James Brown - to portray a seminal figure in African American history in "Marshall," which focuses specifically on a 1940s court case in Connecticut in which Thurgood Marshall, who went on to become the first black man to become a justice in the U.S. Supreme Court, played a role.

The film, which is directed by Reginald Hudlin ("Boomerang" and "House Party") follows the Hollywood playbook much more so than, say, Ava DuVernay's "Selma" in terms of recent films about the civil rights era. However, it's an engaging period piece featuring fine performances by Boseman and Josh Gad, who is typically confined to silly comedies, but here portrays Sam Friedman, a Bridgeport civil trial attorney who assisted Marshall with the case after a judge refused to allow Marshall to speak in the courtroom.

In some ways, Marshall and Friedman are set up as partners in a buddy movie, relegating Friedman to be the guy who wants to sneak out the back door while Marshall stirs up a hornet's nest. Naturally, Friedman eventually comes around and decides to help Marshall with the case, which involves a black chauffeur named Joseph Spell (Sterling K. Brown), who is accused of raping a white woman, Eleanor Strubing (Kate Hudson), and then tossing her off a bridge into a stream.

Marshall quickly sees the unlikeliness of the scenario - Strubing said that she was thrown into the calm-watered side of the bridge - as opposed to the rocky other side that would have guaranteed her death - and her accusations that Spell threw rocks at her once she was in the water is quickly dispelled by the fact that the only rocks on the bridge are mere pebbles.

James Cromwell pops up in a cameo as the obviously prejudiced judge who gives favor to the snotty prosecutor (Dan Stevens), who is clearly his buddy from the country club - that is, until he doesn't. The courtroom scenes involving the changes of heart among the white jurors and judge are among the film's weaker sequences. Yes, I'm aware that the film is based on an actual court case and the outcome remains the same. But the way this is communicated in the film wasn't that convincing.

While "Marshall" may not be a civil rights drama on the level of "Selma," which focused less on an individual than a movement, and Spike Lee's remarkable "Malcolm X," it's an entertaining courtroom drama that occasionally feels like a thriller. It doesn't try to create a mythos around Marshall, but rather portray him as one of the few voices of sanity and competent professionals in an engrossing case in which the real-life Marshall just happened to play a role. In other words, I recommend the film, which is overall a well made true story that doesn't feel too much like a musty biopic.

Review: The Meyerowitz Stories (New And Selected)

Image courtesy of Netflix.

Noah Baumbach doesn't tread much new ground in "The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected)," his latest film regarding the follies and foibles of neurotic - and occasionally acerbic - New Yorkers, but the picture is an example of a filmmaker being in his groove and doing what he does well. His latest is - it should come as no surprise - often bitterly funny, but there's an unexpected poignancy to the proceedings as well.

The film is broken into chapters devoted to various characters in the dysfunctional, but mostly artistically inclined, Meyerowitz clan. Baumbach also frequently cuts away from an actor in mid-speech - or often, shout - and this has the effect of notifying the audience that its characters are people who talk at each other, without often truly listening to what their fellow family members are saying. In other words, they often don't feel listened to or appreciated.

The paterfamilias of the Meyerowitz family is Harold (Dustin Hoffman), a self-important artist whose sculpture work is barely remembered as part of a movement from the late 1960s. Harold is bitter that some of his contemporaries, such as pal L.J. (Judd Hirsch, in a great cameo appearance), are more respected and he pretends to not be interested in a gallery exhibit offered to him, mostly because he'll have to share it with other artists - although we all know he'll accept in the end. Harold is constantly put upon and there's a truly hilarious sequence during which he nearly has a meltdown after a person seated next to him at a restaurant just slightly invades his space. Harold bears some resemblance to Jeff Daniels' hysterically self-involved character from Baumbach's "The Squid and the Whale."

Harold's two sons - Danny (Adam Sandler) and his half-brother, Matthew (Ben Stiller) - are both screwed up in their own ways. Danny is a good father to his daughter, Eliza (Grace Van Patten), although we first meet him singing along to Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam in the car with the girl and nearly having his own meltdown while attempting to park in Manhattan. Danny and Eliza's mother, who is never seen, are separating and he is currently unemployed - after being a stay-at-home father and piano teacher - and seeking a temporary stint on Harold's couch.

Meanwhile, Matthew is the most successful member of the family - albeit, the only one with no artistic ability or temperament - and lives in Los Angeles, where he has recently started a new real estate firm. He resents Harold, who it appears to have constantly made Matthew feel as if the two of them were competing, and there is tension when the two are in the same room together.

However, after Harold ends up in the hospital, his two sons and daughter, Jean (Elizabeth Marvel, who gets some of the film's best lines) reunite. Harold's constantly drunken third wife, Maureen (Emma Thompson, showing a gift for comedy that I'd never before imagined), isn't much help, so it's up to Harold's children to take care of things.

As I'd mentioned before, not much new happens here that hasn't already been witnessed in numerous other movies about dysfunctional families with self-centered patriarchs. But the writing here is so sharp - much like Baumbach's other films - and the performances are incredibly genuine. Hoffman and Thompson are both irritatingly funny, while Marvel is more touchingly so. And Stiller has some great moments, most notably a scene during which he has to pay tribute to his father at Harold's gallery exhibit.

But it's Sandler who turns in the strongest performance here, easily his best since his surprise turn in Paul Thomas Anderson's "Punch Drunk Love" 15 years ago. Yes, the actor occasionally goes into the rage mode he's known for in his films about men with stunted, juvenile personalities, but here - much like in Anderson's film - this is utilized to maximum capacity. He also shows a vulnerability that might convince those who wrote him off long ago. It's a genuinely convincing performance.

Baumbach's films can be described as slightly more acerbic pictures in the vein of Woody Allen. His characters are just as intellectual as Allen's - and they'll often rub it in one another's faces - but they are also more fragile, despite their often hardened exteriors. The director is also a great writer, as witnessed by films such as "The Squid and the Whale," "Greenberg," "While We're Young" and "Frances Ha." I'm not sure if "The Meyerowitz Stories" is among his very best, but it's very good nevertheless - engrossing, funny, humane and wonderfully acted.

Review: The Florida Project

Image courtesy of A24.

Much like "Boyhood" or "Moonlight," Sean Baker's "The Florida Project" is a movie that doesn't make for the easiest sell when describing it. The film is about a couple of kids and their lower class parents who live in a cheap motel overseen by a stressed out, but good natured manager, a few blocks away from Disney World in Orlando. There's a fair amount of drama in the film, but little in the way of plot. The picture is observational, rather than narrative driven, and its broken up into a series of vignettes that are often hilarious, frightening, heart warming and heartbreaking. And yet, this is an amazing movie - one of the best, if not the best, I've seen so far this year.

In Brooklynn Prince, Baker - whose last film was "Tangerine," a movie about two transgender prostitutes that was shot on an iPhone - has found a pint-sized superstar. Her performance as Moonee - the leader of a group of good-natured but rambunctious children who make the Magic Castle motel their playground - is the best by a child that I can recall since Quvenzhane Wallis in "Beasts of the Southern Wild." Much of the time, it's difficult to discern whether the lines blurted out by her and her friends are scripted or ad libbed, but both Prince and Baker should be commended for the result.

Moonee spends her days causing mischief with Scooty (Christopher Rivera) and shy Jancey (Valeria Cotto), who lives down the street the Futureland Inn. The trio wreak all manor of havoc - spitting on parked cars from a balcony, accidentally starting a fire, shutting off the fuse at their motel, busting up old furniture in an abandoned home - in the way that bored kids tend to do. The film is also on-the-money in the manner in which it depicts how children say the damnedest things - my personal favorite is when Moonee declares that if she had a pet alligator, she'd name it Anne.

But life for Moonee is not all fun and games. Her mother, Halley (Bria Vinaite) has no actual job to speak of - rather, she drags Moonee along to help her sell perfume that she's bought in bulk to rich people outside of Orlando's resorts. Occasionally, Halley does other, illegal things for money with Moonee often sitting in the bathroom of their slightly run-down motel room. Halley's best friend is Scooty's mother, Ashley (Mela Murder) - that is, until the kids cause some trouble that leads to a rift between the two parents.

Willem Dafoe gives one of the best performances of his career as Bobby, the hotel's much beleaguered manager, who also acts the de facto mayor of the motel community, a majority of whom are not guests, but live-in families who are below the poverty line. There is, however, one pretty funny sequence during which a pair of tourists on their honeymoon who accidentally made a mistake in booking their accommodations end up at the Magic Castle. Bobby also acts as a default father for the motel's kids, whose parents are too wrapped up in their own dramas to notice that their children are running wild. There's a particularly powerful scene in which Bobby notices a creepy old man leering at the children on the property and he reacts accordingly.

One of the elements of "The Florida Project" that makes it so special is how it is, on the one hand, often a funny, joyful and wildly exuberant picture but, at the same time, deeply sad and true to life. There may be an element of fantasy - and the picture ends with a beautiful flight of fancy as a temporary respite from a bleak scenario that plays out during the final 20 minutes - but the film is grounded in reality. This is a movie that turns its lens on poverty, but doesn't flinch or turn away to shield viewers from unpleasantness. Nor does it exploit its characters or judge them. And it's no small feat that it manages to depict characters - Halley, for instance - who are deeply flawed, but still manage to elicit our sympathy, regardless of how one might view their choices.

Viewers will have their varying opinions on whether Disney World is a magical kingdom, but the film's choice of location - a ramshackle hotel filled with people barely getting by that is down the street from a multi-billion dollar generating tourist spot - is perfect for this film. This is the type of movie that can change one's perception of how the other half lives. It's also one of the best movies I've seen regarding the day-in, day-out lives of children.

As I'd mentioned before, it's a film that can be placed in a category with films such as "Boyhood" and "Moonlight," in that it is a humanistic and realistic film that draws us into the lives of people whose existences might not on the surface appear extraordinary, but the sum total of their experiences can deeply move us. And it's the type of film that, much like those aforementioned movies, is one that I doubt you'll likely soon forget. This is a great film.

Review: Blade Runner 2049

Image courtesy of Warner Bros.

Visually gorgeous and concerned with matters typically more pressing than your average science fiction picture, Denis Villeneuve's "Blade Runner 2049" is a good sequel to a great movie. Much will be said about Roger Deakins' cinematography and it will all be warranted. The film is, no hyperbole here, pretty incredible from a visual standpoint.

From vast desert vistas to a hellish fight amid a sinking ship and cities lit up with large virtual characters making their way through the swarms of humans, Villeneuve's sequel to Ridley Scott's 1982 classic film features some breathtaking camerawork and visual effects. Its story is also pretty engaging - and leaves viewers with much to ponder on what it means to be human or, perhaps, having a state of consciousness - if not quite groundbreaking, considering that it covers much of the same ground of the original "Blade Runner."

As the film opens, Ryan Gosling's K is one of the titular figures, a cop whose job it is to track down replicants who have lived past their planned expiration date and are making lives for themselves outside of their original intention - and kill them. The film opens with such a scene, during which K finds a clue regarding a child who, it appears, was born from a replicant and may have something to do with Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford).

K works for Robin Wright's Lieutenant Joshi, who appreciates his work and obviously cares about him, but the only other "person" with whom he makes actual contact is a hologram of a woman. Other characters central to the picture include Niander Wallace (Jared Leto), the blind villain who is responsible for creating - and destroying, rather cruelly - the replicants, and his vicious henchwoman Luv (Sylvia Hoeks).

My favorite scenes in the picture involve K's mission to track down Deckard, who lives in an abandoned Las Vegas, where hologram images of Elvis Presley flicker on and off in a deserted theater and large statues looking like something out of ancient Egypt mark the entryway to the city. The scenes between Gosling and Ford - both of whom are very good here - give the film, which is often purposefully emotionally distant, its heart and soul.

I don't think "Blade Runner 2049" is on the same level as the original. As I'd mentioned before, it doesn't really cover much ground that hasn't already been well-trodden, but instead it provides a worthy coda to its story. It also, perhaps, hints of more "Blade Runner" films to come. Regardless, Villeneuve has proven again that he is a filmmaker who can take on big budget genre concepts and draw strong performances and thematic relevance from them. This is a rare example of a sequel that is warranted and expands upon its original story, rather than merely milking more money out of a concept.

Review: Super Dark Times

Image courtesy of The Orchard

Kevin Phillips' "Super Dark Times" is a skillfully made - and very dark - coming of age story set in the 1990s that recalls such great movies about youth as "Stand By Me," "Donnie Darko" and "River's Edge," although it's the third film that it most closely resembles.

Although there have been numerous films - most recently, "It" - that depict the somewhat unseemly way that young boys and male teenagers speak, a majority of the pictures that do so portray their protagonists as innocent - at least, to an extent. One of the many elements that makes "Super Dark Times" so chilling is that while the film includes the types of scenes that you might expect to find regarding teenage boys - for example, the inexperienced braggadocio involving sexual matters, sneaking peaks at porn videos that are filled with static almost to the point of being unwatchable and dopey arguments over which comic book character is the best - there's also a sense that some of these young men aren't just boys being boys, but rather are more troubled than they initially let on.

The picture updates the concept of Chekov's gun involving a samurai sword that leads to a tragedy and, in turn, leads to several more. Latchkey teenagers Zach (Owen Campbell), who is the more sensitive of the pair, and Josh (Charlie Tahan), who is less at ease in his skin than his friend and possibly more angry than he initially lets on, are best friends, but an early conversation during which they discuss a girl whom they both clearly like - Allison (Elizabeth Cappuccino) - signals a possible upcoming rift in their comradeship.

Occasionally, the two boys pal around with a middle schooler named Charlie (Sawyer Barth) and an obnoxious, overweight boy, Daryl (Max Talisman), who is clearly a source of annoyance for the group of young men. Without giving too much away, suffice it to say that some stolen weed and the aforementioned weapon are snatched by the boys from Josh's older brother's room and tragedy accidentally strikes.

The film's first half is its strongest as Phillips, a cinematographer, utilizes what is known as the magic hour - the time just before the sunset goes down in the evening - to great effect. But rather than create an aura that is wistful - as many films about youth tend to do - it has a more sinister effect here. Much like David Lynch, whose recent "Twin Peaks" revival included numerous eerie overhead shots of wooded areas, Phillips uses the sun setting in small town America to create a sense of unease.

As the picture settles into its second half, the picture takes on a paranoid edge as the two boys begin to lose faith in each other and, simultaneously, vie for Allison's attentions. There are also some creepy dream sequences that signal us to the fact that Zach is troubled by the aforementioned tragedy, while Josh deals with it, well, in his own way.

Unfortunately, the filmmakers opt for a climax that feels more in line with a teenage slasher film than a dark drama such as "River's Edge," which also involved a group of youths who attempt to cover up the death of one of their compadres. Whereas that 1986 indie classic was a believable drama about the end of innocence, "Super Dark Times" - which, to be fair, has a fair amount to offer - ultimately devolves into a thriller about a sociopath and involves character leaps that I didn't quite buy. In other words, characters become what the plot requires, rather than doing so organically. Regardless, the film marks a notable - if imperfect and uneven - debut for Phillips, who clearly has talent behind the camera.