I have not read the book, nor do I know Yoder herself, so I was truly watching the film with fresh, unbiased eyes. I remember watching a sneak preview of the film a few months back, with it having a large focus on what the title implies, a mother turning into a dog, the beastliness surrounding motherhood, and a lot of imagery of raw meat. What I was actually met with when watching the film was more of a banal stream of thought, with dog imagery intermittently sprinkled in. There are a few shots of something close to body horror: Amy Adams growing fur, a tail, fangs – but rarely does the film actually delve into the idea or character of Nightbitch.

Instead, the movie is dragged along by monologues about motherhood, more so about how a capitalist society treats mothers as a whole or comparing them to goddesses than truly delving into any ideas of motherhood being animalistic. The film also introduced characters that never fully develop, such as a group of young moms who turn from stereotypes used for satire to Mother’s best friends. Father, Mother’s husband, is disdained by Mother for most of the film for his unequal role in parenting and lack of support he shows Mother, only to have a sudden realization at the end of the film that he needs to be a better parent and partner, where then Mother and Father act like nothing ever happened.

Overall, the film gives us a little bit of everything, and a whole lot of nothing. It lightly taps into the dog and goddess metaphors, marriage dynamics, the idea that raising a child takes a village, and the importance of art, but never sticks to a plot point long enough to be meaningful. It is tonally a mess. You’re never going to replicate an entire book in a 1 hour and 38 minute film, so the filmmakers should have either gravitated to a singular plot idea and produced a film around that, or leaned more into adopting abstraction and made this an art film, rather than trying to be Hollywood friendly.

Embracing the idea that motherhood is a violently transformative experience requires more than a few brief moments of body horror and a handful of dialogue lines, constantly interrupted with platitudes on feminism and quips taken right from a late night sitcom. All of the pieces were there, Yoder is a great storyteller and Amy Adams is a fantastic actress, but when put together, there is no bark and no bite.

The post “Nightbitch” Belongs in the Doghouse appeared first on KRUI Radio.

The winner of the 2024 Refocus Film Festival Audience Award was The Count of Monte-Cristo (Le Comte de Monte-Cristo), a new film out of France based on Alexandre Dumas’ literary classic. I’ll be the first to admit I haven’t actually read The Count of Monte-Cristo, but this film made me want to read the book. Pierre Niney does an amazing job embodying Edmond Dantès and the sets of the film are breathtakingly gorgeous.

The Storm is a 2024 release out of China by highly acclaimed animator Busifan. The film uses 2D animation to mimic traditional Chinese ink paintings, resulting in gorgeous pastel backgrounds which make the film worth a watch all on their own. It follows Mantou (translated as Bun in English) and his father Daguzi (Grain) as they search for magical silk in a haunted ship which Daguzi believes will free them from poverty.

Along the way, Mantou and Daguzi find themselves in the center of a longstanding feud between Lumin guardians trying to preserve nature, and members of an opera troupe haunting the ship. Both groups are united in that they blame the greed of humanity for their fates. The film explores themes of change, grief, and letting go, and is appropriate for all ages, but is better suited for older children or young adults who have a solid understanding of death and grief.

The Falling Sky (A Queda do Céu) is a film about Brazil’s indigenous Yanomami people, loosely based on Davi Kopenawa’s book The Falling Sky: Words of a Yanomami Shaman. Though classified as a documentary, the film is moreso a video essay, and features a combination of artistic shots of the sky and trees, a black screen with narration, and documentation of Yanomami rituals and daily life. The film is heavy and thought provoking, focusing on environmental destruction and the disturbance of indigenous daily life by capitalist society.

Ghost Cat Anzu is an adorable rotoscoped Japanese film focusing on a schoolgirl named Karin, her grandfather, and a giant ghost cat named Anzu, as they navigate life together after Karin’s father abruptly leaves her at her grandfather’s temple, trying to escape debt collectors. Karin, with the help of Anzu and other local forest spirits, processes her grief surrounding her mother’s death and father’s disappearance. The film does have a lot of cheap and childish humor like bad puns, but when I saw the film, the theater contained only young adults. There were multiple times where they all erupted in laughter. I think the film can be enjoyable for all audiences, but it is definitely a children’s film. Ghost Cat Anzu has a theatrical release starting November 15th.

I had the privilege of seeing the U.S. premier of Savanna and the Mountain (A Savana e a Montanha), a film focused on Covas do Barroso, Portugal and the towns prolonged battle with a British mining firm. The film has quite a surprise at the end, or at least it was a surprise to me, and includes fantastic original music composed by a member of the town. I loved the filmmaking and musical score of Savanna, and the film had me thinking about the impact my personal consumerism has on towns like Covas do Barroso long after the film was over. If I had to recommend seeing just one film that was played at Refocus, it would be this.

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Both mediums are very complimentary of each other. Music serves as an aid to amplifying visuals, while visuals function to apply music with more expressive, evocative, and poignant character. The two combined create an entirely sensual experience that leaves the viewer with ardently vivid demonstrations of emotion and thought. In my opinion, the perfect scene comprises of a shot with passionate narrative and equally moving and stirring musical themes and elements.

Music is not only a background component of the scene, but it also operates as the instinctive guide that leads the audience in terms of flow and motion within the storyline. The musical feature is essentially what dictates and determines what following events will unravel. In a way, it allows us to be aware and conscious in advance of what is about to unfold. It’s a foreboding kind of warning or prediction that allows the audience to know the direction that the film is about to take, long before it moves that way.

I’d like to think of it as composers centering and revolving the music around plots, where the music is able to convey the story on its own through the sound’s embodied atmosphere and ambience. Why I think film scores and soundtracks are so especially important is because we fail to recognize its merit for its role in the translating of sentiment and intensity. Music after all is a universal language. 

The first movie soundtrack that I had really enjoyed, so much so that I had even purchased a copy of it on vinyl, was Nicholas Brittel’s orchestration for the Barry Jenkins film If Beale Street Could Talk (2018). There was one track in the album named “Agape”, which plays during a scene in where Tish (played by Kiki Layne) talks about the momentary instance she realized she loved Fonny (Stephan James). She says, “We were a part of each other. Flesh of each other’s flesh which we so took for granted that we never thought of the flesh. Yet, it was no surprise to me when I finally understood that he was the most beautiful person I had seen all my life.”

Tish recites this dialogue over Britell’s score, as a frame of them appears where they are in a moving subway train, staring deeply at each other’s exterior. I would listen to this specific track a lot. It even become my top song on Spotify for a while. The stunning magnificence of this album amazes and fascinates me for its capacity to be brimming with such profuse lust for life.

Soon after, I found out about Emile Mosseri, who had done the scores for Lee Isaac Chung’s Minari (2020) and Miranda July’s Kajillionaire (2020). As I had watched Minari during my senior year of high school for a class, I was immediately compelled to download its score after hearing the album’s outro track play over the scene of the Yi family’s farm burning down. In this dramatically touching scene, we see the Yi family lose everything they worked so hard for, signifying the collapse of their American dream. As the outro track poses itself to be tenderly delicate, the musical personality of the scene is complex and intricate in its spirit and energy.

Minari ending scene. Image via Midstory

As for the Kajillionaire score, I adore the track, “Infinite Love“. It plays in the film after Old Dolio (played by Evan Rachel Woods) and Melanie (played by Gina Rodriguez) emerge from staying in a pitch-dark room. Here, Old Dolio says in a speech, “I think it happened right away. Right after that first big noise. We died. This is just how it’s gonna be forever. Just us, in blackness. You can’t believe it because you were married to life, hooked on it. I wasn’t hooked so it’s not such a big deal to me.” After this segment, Old Dolio enters a convenience store and starts to see everything mundane and earthly as mesmerizing and captivating. A viewed perception toward reality, shifted.

I also consider myself an avid fan of Jon Brion. He is the composer for the soundtracks of Greta Gerwig’s Lady Bird (2017) and Michel Gondry’s Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind (2004). The Lady Bird soundtrack holds a particularly distinctive place in my heart as this was what I had been listening to before boarding the plane for college. It’s similar to Lady Bird when the track “Leaving” plays over the scene where Lady Bird’s mother drops her off at the airport as she leaves to attend UC Davis.

In Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind, the track “Theme” plays over Joel (played by Jim Carrey) waking up and going on with his daily life. He says in a voice-over, “Today is a holiday invented by greeting card companies to make people feel like crap. I ditched work today, took a train up to Montauk. I don’t know why. I’m not an impulsive person. I guess I just woke up in a funk this morning. I gotta get my car fixed.” In this monologue, he mourns the existence of Valentine’s Day. With the score still playing, Joel has his first encounter with Clementine, as she walks past him by the beach’s coast, symbolizing what would then be a tumultuous journey of trying to forget each other.

Scores and soundtracks like these persist in reminding me of how impactful and influential cinema and music have been in my life. The aforementioned composers make life all the more colorful and vibrant through the wondrous meshing of visuals and sound. Earlier this year, I delved further into the discography of Hans Zimmer, who I would argue is one of the best when it comes to the mastership of film soundtracks and scores. From this exploration, I came to the conclusion that he was right when he had claimed that “anything can be musical sound.”

The post Film Scores and Soundtracks, an Overlooked Aspect of Cinema appeared first on KRUI Radio.

Welcome to the first addition of RomCom Rants, and article where I rant about the things I like and the things I don’t in romantic comedies.

13 Going on 30 is a RomCom classic if I’ve ever seen one. Made in 2004, this film stars Mark Ruffalo, Jennifer Garner, and Judy Greer. If you haven’t had the pleasure of seeing this movie, this brief summary is for you. Jenna Rink (whose older self is played by Jennifer Garner) is a thirteen-year-old girl who wants nothing more than to be a part of the popular crowd. The film starts off on the day of Jenna’s 13th birthday party. She has invited Tom-Tom (Judy Greer), the  most popular girl in their grade, and her best friend/next door neighbor, Matt (Mark Ruffalo).At the party, Matt gives Jenna a dream house sprinkled with magic dust.

Embarrassed that the “popular” kids will make fun of Matt’s heartfelt gift, Jenna puts it in her closet. When her party flops, Jenna locks herself in said closet and yells how she wants to be thirty, not thirteen. She chants, “Thirty, Flirty, and Thriving” as she slams her body into the shelf
that holds the dream house. The magic dust from the house falls on Jenna and the next thing she knows, she wakes up in New York City, 17 years later. The rest of the movie follows Jenna as she tries to figure out her new life.

I really love Jenna as a character. I think she is relatable. She worries about the same things I think every girl worries about at some point in their life. She worries that she isn’t pretty enough, so she overcompensates with make-up. She doesn’t think her body is filled out, so she stuffs her bra.

Personally, the first time I saw this movie I was in the third grade, struggling with these same issues. It was really good for me to see the struggles Jenna had because it showed me that you aren’t going to be the same

body type your whole life. Your body changes, but that doesn’t make you any less beautiful. Even though it appears that Jenna’s insecurities go away once she makes her transformation, I think they just take a new form, but even though she is insecure about aspects of herself, she never lets her confidence dwindle, which I think is a great thing for young women to see. Love yourself girl.

Her character is also believable because you can still see her thirteen-year-old innocence in her thirty-year-old self. She doesn’t wear clothes a 30-year-old in 2004 would normally wear. Her outfits are either bright and loud, like someone growing up in the eighties would wear, or modest and simple, like something a child would wear. This allows the viewer to sympathize with Jenna and empathize with her innocence.

Even though I love Jenna’s character, there are times where I am disappointed in her. For example.

SPOILER ALERT

When she first made her transformation, she found out thirty-year-old Jenna did not have the best morals. She was kissed by a man married to her coworker, after Jenna pushed him off her, she discovered she had been having a not so discrete affair with him. She was appalled by her behavior and left work appalled by herself. But when Matt kisses her, a soon-to-be-married man, she doesn’t question her behavior at all. She doesn’t even act like they did something wrong (compared to Matt, whose face obviously shows regret). This really shows how young and immature she truly is.

Even though Matt is obviously in love with Jenna, and has been since they were young, I appreciate the realistic ending. They do not end up together right away, he picks his fiancé because even though he knows he loves Jenna, he always knows that he made a promise to his fiance and needs to honor that promise.

It’s not until Jenna is able to travel back to her thirteenth birthday party and pick Matt over Tom Tom that they are able to have a happy ending. Even though it is sad in the moment when Matt reluctantly rejects Jenna, you are able to see how much they truly care about each other even though they can’t be together.

END OF SPOILER

The thing I like the most about this movie is how fun it is. It has several choreographed dance numbers to classic 80s song like Thriller and Love is a Battlefield.

Jenna still does things that a thirteen-year-old would do like have sleepovers and eat chocolate chip pancakes with smiley-faces on them. It really gives this movie character that not every other RomCom has. The outfits are another thing I enjoyed in this movie. I know I previously discussed Jenna’s outfits when she’s older, but the outfits she wears, as well as the other characters, is totally eighties and totally fabulous.

RAPID RANT

Most of this film is centered around Jenna’s career. Jenna hires Matt to take pictures for WORK. Jenna gets in a fight with Lucy about WORK. Jenna is focused on WORK most of the film and her relationship with Matt directly stems off her passion for her WORK. If she didn’t have a job for him to do, they wouldn’t spend so much time together and eventually fallen for each other. Even though Jenna’s career is in the limelight most of the film, it is not addressed at all in the ending. I think Jenna should get the guy but still remain a badass Magazine Editor.

If you liked what you read, you can find 13 going on 30 on Netflix. Thanks for reading.

The post RomCom Rants: “Thirty, Flirty, and Thriving” appeared first on KRUI Radio.

Summer movie season: that time of year when big budget studios throw all of their money behind the next generic, bland, product-pushing mega tentpole movie. Even with all the cynicism I treat blockbuster season, I must admit I love it.

Or maybe it is more of a love-hate relationship. Past Summers have given us Oscar winners such as Gladiator, pitch-perfect comic book adaptations including Spider-Man 1 and 2 and X2, as well as many Pixar favorites that if you don’t love, you obviously have no soul. With the good however, comes the bad. For each Dark Knight, there is a Battlefield Earth. All the Toy Story movies in the world can’t make up for any amount of Superbabies movies. So let’s see how 2016 stacks up.

Unsurprisingly, there is no shortage of action-driven “family friendly” movies that have hit theaters this Summer. While I love a solid popcorn movie more than most, it pains me to say there are not many diamonds to find this year in a sea of turds. Still, Captain America: Civil War was a perfectly crafted and solid piece of entertainment, and not without a certain level of emotional heft. Marvel finally realized that they can’t craft villains that are worth the shiny CGI they are made out of so they pitted our two favorite action heroes against each other. The result was a fast and fun film with kinetic action sequences with a physical sensibility reminiscent of a Paul Greengrass film. It succeeds where Avengers 2 failed in terms of giving its characters actual stakes. The whole world isn’t going to be destroyed, but the relationship between Cap and Iron Man takes a rather dark turn that gets viewers’ attention and actually makes us care.

X-men Apocalypse, alternately, is a hollow shell of a movie that makes me sad that I was ever so pumped for its release in the first place. Cards on the table, I love the X-men movies. It is easily my favorite comic book franchise and if anyone was going to enjoy Apocalypse it was going to be me. On a surface level, sure, it hit some of the right beats. Fassbender and McAvoy make a great leading pair and the Quicksilver showcase, much like the segment in Days of Future Past, never ceases to amaze.

However, there are too many boring characters, the plot meanders way too slowly, and the film has a huge villain problem. I’m not even sure what Apocalypse’s powers are supposed to be. I know it’s definitely not picking good henchmen. If you think an alcoholic teenager with bird wings is one of the strongest mutants in the world, you are going to have some crappy horsemen helping you usher in the end of days.

And speaking of Horsemen! The film no one was waiting for (and no one really asked for), Now You See Me 2.

If I ever meet someone who was rabidly anticipating this sequel, I will let Chris Angel levitate me in front of a bus. I see myself as a just-go-with-it kind of movie goer. When everyone is asking “Did the top keep spinning?”, or “Was Deckard actually a repilicant?”, I find myself saying “Who cares that movie was awesome!” That being said, there is only so much I’m willing to forgive.

Now You See Me 2 maybe works on a surface level of pure visual entertainment if you like crappy sight gags. Not much else is worthy of your attention. The movie is like a big ugly Christmas sweater: fun to laugh at for a bit, but once you pull at one thread, the whole thing falls apart. The slickest sequence in the film, where the Horsemen throw around a playing card with a valuable computer chip attached to it, loses its audience once you realize the entire sequence had no purpose in the plot of the film. Director Jon Chu hopes to literally distract his audience with slight of hand and tired card tricks. Sorry Jon, no one thinks magicians are cool.

2016’s blockbusters are mainly just busts, it seems. While it may be difficult to single out many bright spots in the lackluster tentpole films, there is some smaller budget fare that makes the season much more bearable. Even though it had a very brief run in theaters, Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping was easily one of the most entertaining, if under-watched films of the summer. Popstar functions as a Spinal Tap for today’s generation of pop mega-star obsessed fans. Or it works for people like me who love making fun of such folks. Being mean-spirited is fun!

Popstar is not for everyone. Its delightfully foul-mouthed and gleefully inappropriate approach to comedy may find some viewers out of their comfort zone . Andy Samberg is locked in as the Bieberesque protagonist who just wrote and produced his second album with tracks that range from how humble he his to a song made up entirely of catch phrases. The music alone is worth the watch.

Finally, Summer was good for my favorite movie of the year so far, The Nice Guys. Shane Black shows off his expertise as a buddy cop filmmaker who excels at showing off different sides of Los Angeles. I love when movies are able to show unique sides of settings we have seen many times before, and The Nice Guys runs from Beverly Hills-style L.A. to grimy urban alleyways to classy Hollywood parties. The film is anchored by Russell Crow doing his best tough guy with a heart, but the star is Ryan Gosling.

Most people have come to expect a lot of good looks and charm with some sly talk from Gosling, but the man has serious comic acting chops. His delivery, timing, and especially physical acting went well above what many comic actors are capable of. Some might say the movie suffers from plot issues, mainly in that its plot really doesn’t matter. Sure, but when it’s so damn enjoyable to watch the two leads play off each other in a delightfully dark setting, who cares?

So, would Commodus give this Summer a thumbs up or down? Probably more like a “Meh…”. While there are certainly films to enjoy I’m finding a lot more movies that really shouldn’t have seen the light of day. Maybe I’m just spoiled from last years smorgasbord of Mad Max: Fury Road, Inside Out, Trainwreck, Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation, and way too many other fantastic films. Or maybe I just expect too much from summer movies. All I want to do is be excited and eat popcorn. “Are you not entertained?” No Marcus Aurelius, not so much this year.

Watch and Talk is an alternative look at film. It is a column that discusses movies from all different genres. Movies are not necessarily reviewed, they are simply talked about. Watch and Talk looks at not only the entertainment value of various films, but also the cultural impacts and aspects that films can have.

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Personally, I’m a pretty big fan of horror-anthologies. If done correctly, they manage to strip away much of the generally ineffective plot and character development that bog down so many horror films, and skips right to the good stuff. Of course, plot and character development are not bad things, but with a niche genre like horror that often times serves a very specific purpose, to scare the audience, these narrative devices can often times get in the way of the real thing the audience is after. Obviously not all horror films should shirk these aspects of their movies, but if you’re clearly just out to scare the audience then you often don’t really need to get to know the paper thin characters all that well. I’m a big fan of the V/H/S series, and I think they did an excellent job of really honing in on the scary moments in each short film, making the entire movie a really great time-to-scare investment.

Southbound does this fairly well to, but in all honesty I think it falls flat compared to V/H/S series. While the V/H/S movies usually played around with more generic tropes, and were only very loosely connected, Southbound explores fairly unique situations, and each vignette is clearly tied together within the same world. Unfortunately, the fact that the scary situations each short film creates are rather unique, their short time frames end up hurting the overall product. Because we’re not super familiar with the generic content, we as an audience need a little more time to understand what’s going on in each short.

Redemption and retribution for past sins is a constant theme in Southbound, and is explored in every vignette. Usually these sorts of themes make for compelling horror films, adding a sense of inevitability and fate to the drama. However, the anthology format again means that the troubled past these characters are running from is not given enough time to be explored or explained. Horrible crimes are hinted at and alluded to, but ultimately the audience is left without enough information and without enough attachment to the characters to truly feel involved.

Another major difference between Southbound and V/H/S is that each V/H/S short was a “found footage” film. Maybe I’m just biased, but for reasons I can’t quite put my finger on, I think this format works better in an anthology film. All of this is not to say that Southbound doesn’t have its moments. The inescapable demons in “The Way In/Out” are truly creepy and will surely plague my imagination the next time I’m driving on the seemingly unending open road. “The Accident” was also a particularly chilling tale, and I think it was the strongest effort throughout the film.

Overall, Southbound is an OK entry into the anthology horror genre. Don’t expect to find anything groundbreaking or particularly exciting here, but if you know you just want some cheap horror thrills, there is plenty here to deliver.

Click here to see if Southbound is playing in a theater near you. Check out the trailer for the film below:

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Love is the newest film from infamous director Gaspar Noe. Released in 2015, the 3-D film immediately garnered attention for its use of nudity and explicit sex. Love blurs the line between art-house film and pornography in a way that is rarely seen, especially on such a wide scale. Love is not without its critics, and many of their points are valid; Love is not a perfect movie. But, it is certainly different, and for many, the film’s desire to push boundaries is enough to deserve attention.

The film follows Murphy (as in “Murphy’s Law“, which the film explicitly states in bold letters), a young father who wakes up on New Year’s Day deeply unsatisfied with his life. He receives a call from his ex-girlfriend’s (with the equally loaded name Electra) mother, asking him if he has seen Electra lately, fearing that she may have hurt herself. This call puts Murphy in a tail-spin, and he spends the rest of the film reminiscing on his passionate but volatile relationship.

Gaspar Noe is known as a boundary pushing director. His other feature length films, (I Stand Alone, Irreversible, and Enter the Void) all deal with tough subject matter, and his style of film making is designed to disturb instead of entertain. His work in Love is no different, and reminds me quite a bit of Lars von Trier‘s Nymphomaniac. Beyond the exploration of somewhat similar subject matter, and the explicit depictions of sex, the two films also share a fourth-wall breaking story telling technique. Love is filled with wild insert shots (including an ejaculating penis that is somewhat frightening to see in 3-D), harsh jump cuts, and non-linear vignettes. This is definitely an artsy film, and anyone coming into it with the same expectations they would have for a Hollywood blockbuster will be in for quite the surprise.

Despite all the sex and artsy film techniques, or perhaps because of it, Love still has its shining moments. There are moments of real and relatable intimacy between the characters. While romantic comedies may play on our happiest fantasies of love, Love brings to the forefront our darkest realities. There are moments and feelings in Love that are deeply human, but seem somewhat unexplored in movies. It takes a bold and honest look at a deeply dysfunctional relationship, and forces its audience to feel both revolted and sympathetic to its main characters. And that, I suppose, is enough for a piece of art, isn’t it?

Click here to see if Love is playing in a theater near you.

The post Cinema Spotlight: Love appeared first on KRUI Radio.

I have to start out by saying that this film seems tailor-made for me. It checks off so many boxes on my list of favorite elements of horror films; paranoia, suspense, religious iconography, isolation, family dynamics, and uncontrolled female sexuality. The Witch reminded me quite a lot of another personal favorite of mine, Ben Wheatley’s A Field in England. I was truly shaken seeing this film, and for that reason it has quickly become one of my personal favorites.

The Witch follows a Puritan family that is excommunicated from their township for accusing the local church of heresy and corruption. They are then forced to make their own settlement in the harsh forests of New England. One day, when eldest daughter Thomasine is playing with her infant brother, the baby goes missing. A wolf is blamed, but the viewers and the family know that something much more disturbing is at work in the woods. Paranoia and religious fanaticism drive the family apart, and they descend into madness as the witch of the woods begins to tear them apart.

The film is absolutely stunning to watch, and Eggers really wrenches every amount of emotion and terror out of every shot in the film. Wide angle shots show the dense and terrifying forests of New England in all of their glory, and claustrophobic scenes set in the family’s cabin are beautifully lit by natural candlelight. I’m no art expert, but it seems clear to me that the visual style of the film was heavily influenced by 18th-century Spanish painter Francisco Goya. In particular, his darker works seem to haunt the visuals throughout The Witch.

The soundtrack also plays a key role the tone of the film. The non-traditional soundtrack builds tension and terror that perfectly compliments the slow-burning pace of the film. For those expecting a standard genre film, know that The Witch is not your typical horror film. Along with other recent critical darlings like It Follows, The Babadook, and Goodnight Mommy, The Witch takes a more high brow and patient approach to the horror game. I think we’re in the middle of a new era of smarter and more technically-impressive horror films, and films like The Witch truly feel disturbing and refreshing in an otherwise tired genre.

Unfortunately, The Witch has finished its nationwide theatrical run, but be on the lookout for news of a Blu-ray or Digital release!

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The film, based on James M. Cain’s 1943 novel, follows insurance salesman Walter Neff, and his entanglement with the alluring yet dangerous Phyllis Dietrichson. Together, they plot the murder of Phyllis’s husband so they can collect a huge accident insurance pay out and run off together. Of course, things don’t go according to plan, and the plot thickens until it reaches its frenetic conclusion.

Stylistically, this is a classic film noir. The dark subject matter is matched by the low key lighting. This creates long dark shadows, that lend to the ominous atmosphere. The film is drenched in heavy grays and blacks, which creates the famous “chiaroscuro” effect. It also relies heavily on flashback. In fact, the first moments of the film come at the very end of the story, and the narrative is driven by Neff’s retelling of all the events.

One particularly interesting aspect of the film is its heavy emphasis on the relationship between Barton Keyes, Neff’s boss and eventual antagonist as he tries to solve the murder of Mr. Dietrichson, and Walter Neff. While the novel was much more focused on Neff’s relationship with Phyllis, the film depicts their romance as rather cold and passionless. Instead of Phyllis, Keyes becomes the main motivator for Neff’s murderous actions. He wants to prove that he can beat the system, and that he can get away with a murder so perfect that not even Keyes could figure it out. Their buddy-buddy (bordering on familial) relationship is both intimate and competitive, and to say that there is some Oedipal undertones is an understatement.

The film also features a rather unique emphasis on corporate culture. The idea of “white collar crime” was a rather new one at this point in time, and Wilder was eager to tap into the psyche of the discontented office worker. For Neff, his action is a rebellion against the system he had so long been a part of. And when the screws start tightening on the investigation of the murder, it is not the police that Neff fears. It’s not even the police that are doing the majority of the investigation. Instead, it is the insurance company that serves as the ultimate authority over Neff. It is the realm of big business that serves as the final arbiter, not the government.

If you’re at all a fan of film noir, and you haven’t seen Double Indemnity, than you absolutely need to check it out. And if you’re a fan of detective plots, wise-talking criminals, and a certain nostalgia for a time gone by, this film is for you.

The post Cinema Spotlight: Double Indemnity appeared first on KRUI Radio.

The story revolves around self-help author Michael Stone, who is incredibly lonely, and to whom everyone’s voice sounds the exact same. While never explicitly stated, this clearly an allusion to the Fregoli delusion, which affects its victims with similar symptoms (Kaufman wrote the original play under the name Francis Fregoli, and the hotel that serves as the setting is called The Fregoli). While he is traveling to Cincinnati on business, he meets Lisa, the one person who has a unique voice. The film tracks their relationship, and Stone’s increasingly loose grip on reality.

One of Anomalisa‘s biggest talking points has been its animation style; the film uses stop-motion to capture photos of 3-D printed models. Click here to see an article explaining the process. Stop-motion is a form of animation that largely fell out of style decades ago, but every so often a director resurrects the form for a major motion picture (like Wes Anderson’s Fantastic Mr. Fox). The 3-D printed models make push the medium to a new level of realism that hasn’t really been seen on a large scale before. However, this newfound realism has the film precariously perched on the sharp descent of the uncanny valley. The film is in an uncomfortable no-man’s-land between overtly stylized and creepily realistic.

Luckily, directors Duke Johnson and Charlie Kaufman are smart filmmakers, and use this facet of the animation to their advantage. There are numerous visual gags throughout the film that call attention to the artificiality of the models. It also stylistically emphasizes the unreal-ness of Stone’s increasingly powerful delusions.

However, the models also serve some more subtle purposes. In particular, they allow for a visually unique take on sex and bodies. By making the bodies un-real, the film is actually able to have a more frank and honest depiction of real human sexuality. Gone are the “perfect” bodies of Hollywood actors/actresses; instead, they are replaced with more “normal” looking bodies, especially for the characters’ ages. Although it is true in most every scene, the sex scenes in particular highlight just how artificial the bodies are. However, this artificiality is so highly contrasted with their intensely human characters and interactions, that it strongly emphasis just how relatable the characters are.

On the subject of “relate-ability” of the characters, there’s a problem that needs to be addressed. With the #OscarsSoWhite discussion brewing up so much controversy, and possibly even resulting in some changes to the Academy’s system, Anomalisa is a particularly un-diverse film. In the whole of the movie, I counted one single person who was not speaking English. This individual walked past Michael in the hallway for a split second, so the audience only viewed them from behind. With the possible exception of this individual, every single other character I remember in the film was white. There were a few women who were prominent characters in the film, but their importance was tied directly to their (usually sexual) relationship to Michael.

Of course, this is totally understandable in a film that closely follows only one character. Of course other characters in the story will only be important due to their relationship to the protagonist. But do we really need another story about the personal issues of old rich white guys?

Now, perhaps the film is also an in-depth look at mental illness, and thus breaks it away from the typical glut of whiteguyprobs movie. I didn’t really get that vibe, but maybe that’s just me. I’ve also heard some say that it is a sort of commentary on male (and white) privilege, which I can maybe begin to see. But again, if we want a film that discusses the effects of white privilege, do we really need to first and foremost focus on the effects of privilege on the privileged? This is definitely an issue that needs further discussion, but it’s a discussion far too large for a small weekly column to tackle. Nonetheless, it’s something important to consider.

Click here to see if Anomalisa is playing in a theater near you. Check out the trailer for the film below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DT6QJaS2a-U

The post Cinema Spotlight: Anomalisa appeared first on KRUI Radio.