By Brett Blake EVEREST is a film that impresses on several levels… and yet still somehow underwhelms a bit. There are many good elements contained within the movie, and there are some striking moments, but the overall impression it left with me was one of “That’s it?” And that is not to somehow slight or downplay the true story behind the film, which is a story filled with tragedy and heroism, but as a film, EVEREST feels curiously low-key. Telling the true story of a notorious 1996 Everest expedition that ended less than successfully, EVEREST follows several teams of climbers as they attempt to summit the fabled mountain. Due to miscommunication, lack of cooperation between the teams, and a hellish storm, the teams find themselves trapped on the mountain in the most dangerous conditions imaginable and with little hope of making it back down alive. If you don't already know the particulars of the real event, keep it that way before watching the film. Certainly, there are elements of stunning spectacle to be found in the movie, with cinematography that is beautiful (the photography of the titular mountain and its environs is often jaw-dropping and awe-inspiring) and effects work that is totally seamless. There are moments during the third act that are properly harrowing and tense, and you never once question how the filmmakers pulled this stuff off; you simply accept that these characters are in this precarious situation. The expansive cast roster is incredibly impressive, and it’s a true ensemble in the sense that the focus is on many characters, each with their own little story going on. Some of the actors are better served by the screenplay than others (Jake Gyllenhaal suffers the most in a role so inessential and inconsequential one wonders why Gyllenhaal’s even in the movie at all), but the likes of Jason Clarke, Josh Brolin, John Hawkes, and Emily Watson all get moments to really shine. Clarke, particularly, is the heart of the movie, and he delivers a performance that is wonderfully warm and humane The pacing of the movie is curiously easy-going for what should be a dramatization of a terrifyingly tense real event, and that can be traced back the script level, which (admirably) goes to great pains to set everything up in the first half of the story, but a side effect of this is that the first half almost entirely lacks incident. This is not ameliorated by the direction of Baltasar Kormakur, which is no-nonsense almost to a fault; there’s a lack of “oomph” to the proceedings that kind of undercuts the stakes a bit (several big moments - including major character deaths! - are severely underplayed). That’s not to say the direction is bad, or inert, but it’s just slightly too matter-of-fact or dispassionate. Dario Marianelli’s score does its damndest to add a sense of sweeping scope, and it gives a nice boost to the movie’s most dramatic moments. Restraint is usually not a bad thing (especially in a tale such as this one, which could so easily tip over in histrionics or melodrama), but an extra jolt of energy would really have been welcome to bring everything home. As it stands, EVEREST is a handsome production with fine performances and an incredible setting, and that’s enough to warrant a watch, in this writer’s opinion.
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By Brett Blake Without question, THE VISIT is writer/director M. Night Shyamalan’s strongest film since 2002’s SIGNS. That is not just faint praise, either; THE VISIT is a legitimately good movie, one that offers some nicely low key chills alongside a knowing and cheeky sense of humor. It also contains an emotional core the likes of which Shyamalan hasn’t even attempted to include in any of his movies over the last decade. The plot is simple. A mother (Kathryn Hahn) sends her daughter, Becca (Olivia DeJonge), and son, Tyler (Ed Oxenbould), to spend a week with her deeply estranged parents (Deanna Dunagan and Peter McRobbie). Becca plans to make a documentary exploring how and why her mother and her grandparents stopped speaking, but it quickly becomes apparent that the grandparents are not entirely of sound mind or body. Late night psychotic episodes, fits of violence, and general inexplicable behavior quickly become the norm, leaving Becca and Tyler to try to figure out exactly what is wrong with their grandparents… before they are put in serious physical jeopardy. That simple story - as executed by Shyamalan and his actors - plays like gangbusters, for the most part. Shyamalan clearly hasn’t lost the ability to conjure up suspenseful and eerie sequences, and we get several of those throughout the course of the movie. The overall tone is more “fun scary” than “scary scary,” in the sense that nothing in here will truly traumatize anyone (except, perhaps, the very young), but the big scare moments land with impact, including one fantastic gross-out gag near the end that should make most in the audience recoil (and also wonder how the heck it made the cut in a PG-13 film). The film also has a very healthy and self-aware sense of humor about itself; it’s not afraid to go broad for a moment before reining everything back in, and that’s a valuable thing when we’re talking about a story that could - with one wrong move - get either too silly or too self-important. Though technically part of the “found footage” horror subgenre (well, it’s more a technique than an actual genre, but indulge me), THE VISIT is actually structured more like an amateur documentary (the one Becca works on throughout the course of the story). Yes, it extensively employs first-person points-of-view throughout, and it utilizes some of the gimmicks of the format (such as objects/people suddenly popping into the frame), but overall, it’s an exceptionally well-crafted (from a technical perspective) movie, and it is one of the most handsomely produced found footage(ish) entries ever. Playing within the POV aspect of the style, Shyamalan stages the sinister goings-on very well, and he constantly keeps the frame alive with things appearing at the edges or appearing and disappearing the background. He’s always been a stronger director than writer (even his worst films have some inspired moments of direction), but this is his first effort in a long while where both facets of Shyamalan - more or less - work in tandem fluidly. As our lead sibling pair, Olivia DeJonge and Ed Oxenbould sketch out a very convincing and lived-in sister/brother dynamic. Oxenbould’s character is kind of annoying in an endearing and funny way, not an offensive way, and his interplay with is older sister contains some of the movie’s biggest laughs. Dunagan and McRobbie do fine work with roles requiring them to swing from “seemingly normal” to “fully unhinged,” and they accomplish this quite effectively; some critics have moaned about the film’s depiction of those characters being problematic because they somewhat encapsulate the message that “Old people are scary.” I disagree. The film is not saying (nor are the actors) that old people are scary. It’s saying that “These two old people are scary,” and that’s a big difference. The heart and soul of the movie, however, is Olivia DeJonge. Portraying a aspiring young filmmaker, DeJonge conveys wit and a sharp intellect, as well as a thoughtful and contemplative side. Her character exists as the movie’s embodiment of its thematic concerns; being a child of divorce, she wants to find a way to get her mother and grandparents to reconcile, something that - she hopes - will be a kind of catharsis for her troubled feelings about her own parents. DeJonge handles all of this with grace, and she’s the centerpiece of the movie’s single best scene, a truly moving and emotional moment for this young character that acts as a nice and needed counterweight to the movie’s more overt scares and laughs. These kinds of moments remind us that Shyamalan was once terrific at writing relatable human characters, despite what his most recent films might tell us. In some ways, this was a logical step for Shyamalan to take after a decade of subpar work: a small scale story, dealing with only a few characters, set in a fairly isolated locale, and filmed utilizing a popular aesthetic. But rather than feeling like Shyamalan admitting defeat and retreating to some kind of pedestrian commercial safety net, THE VISIT feels like Shyamalan finally returning to the character study qualities that THE SIXTH SENSE, UNBREAKABLE, and SIGNS embodied. Let’s be clear - THE VISIT is not on the level of those three films, but in comparison to all of the movies that came after that, it represents nothing less than an entertaining return to form for M. Night Shyamalan. It’s a movie that delivers on its promise of being a creepy good time, but it also offers some nice moments of genuine emotion that a lesser movie would never bother with, and in an era of lazy and soulless cinematic product, I really appreciate that.
By Brett Blake
With the summer now behind us, Breanne Brennan and Brenton Thom join me once again to fully deconstruct, analyze, and otherwise discuss the recently-concluded Summer Movie Season of 2015. Our opinions differ a bit on several key points (Is it possible TED 2 was actually good?! Was TOMORROWLAND a major or minor failure?), but overall, we agreed that there were plenty of good things to come from the past few months. Topics Include… - Overall Impressions of the Season (01:10) - Box Office Underperformers and Flops (02:40) - Box Office Overperformers and Sleeper Hits (12:36) - Movies That Pleasantly Surprised Us or Were Underrated (21:17) - Movies That Unpleasantly Surprised Us or Were Just Plain Bad (32:44) • In-depth and Comprehensive FANTASTIC FOUR Discussion (34:28) - Our Favorite Films of the Summer (50:21) Enjoy! And feel free to share your favorite - or least favorite - movies of the summer!
Disclaimer: The Cinematic Confab is a non-profit entertainment and analysis podcast. All audio clips and music cues used are the property of their individual copyright holders. They are presented here under the banner of “Fair Use,” for the purpose of analysis, criticism, and/or humor. No infringement of copyright is intended.
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