Infinity Chamber (2017)

Tags

Drama, Mystery, Romance, Sci-fi

(For Day 29 of NaPoWriMo, the prompt was to write about a scene seen through a window, so I went a bit philosophical based on this movie.)

My weak eyes caught the window
And peered into the glass
And saw my own reflection,
That transparent underclass,
Plus the view that lay behind it,
Mountains standing granite-nosed
With a forest in its orbit
And myself superimposed.
Nothing moved but my reflection,
And I wondered if I stared
Through a picture frame or window,
Something live or long since aired.
__________________________

MPA rating:  Not Rated (should be PG-13, for sporadic language)

Do you ever just pick a random movie you know nothing about from the TV on-demand list based on only its name? Such independent films typically have a 50-50 shot of being either a hidden gem or a pretentious stinker, and this was one case where the former option won out, thankfully. Infinity Chamber hasn’t received much fanfare, but it’s a top-notch reality-questioning sci-fi that deserves better than obscurity.

Apparent amnesiac Frank (Christopher Soren Kelly) wakes up in a futuristic cell, and his unseen caretaker Howard (Jesse D. Arrow) informs him that he will take care of him for the foreseeable future while providing no details on why Frank is there or even where he is. I’ll throw out a spoiler warning, but it was clear right away to me that Howard was a HAL-like AI designed to sound personable, and I feared that it would take the whole film for Frank to realize that too. Yet he figures it out fairly quickly, and the real mystery instead involves the visions of Frank’s past that the room induces as a sort of lucid dream, where he repeatedly meets a barista named Gabby (Cassandra Clark) and must deduce how he came to be in his predicament and how to escape it.

If I had to compare Infinity Chamber to another film, I would perhaps point to other minimalist human-robot pairings like Moon, I Am Mother, or Archive, but Infinity Chamber tends to leave itself open to different interpretations while still delivering a mostly satisfying end, which is not easy to pull off. The performances are good across the board, the low-budget effects are surprisingly realistic, and its themes of automated prisons and questionable memories provoke thought as all good sci-fi should. If you’re looking for something to randomly play one night, I would highly recommend it for any sci-fi fan.

Best line: (Frank, ruminating on Howard’s role for him) “My father died of heart disease. When he got sick, they put him on this machine. Kept him alive four years. Four years longer than he was supposed to live. You think that’s a gift? The man had made his peace; he was ready to go. A machine took that away from him. It trapped him in a life that wasn’t even living. Everybody’s so d*** excited: “Look what it can do!” No one stops to think, “Look what it doesn’t do.” He was the strongest man I ever met. And I’d never seen him broken. Sometimes life’s just supposed to be what it is.”

Rank:  List Runner-Up

© 2021 S.G. Liput
731 Followers and Counting

Yellow Rose (2019)

Tags

Drama, Musical

(For Day 28 of NaPoWriMo, the prompt was to write a poem of questions, so mine asks you to compare your struggles with those of the past.)

Did the people I admire
Throw their hands up and retire
When the world was just as rotten
As the world has been to me?

Did the heroes and the dreamers
Yield to censurers and screamers
And abandon their ambitions
To accept reality?

Was their journey less demanding
Or the road more understanding
Than the one that lays before me,
Which no protest will improve?

Did the Greats not show that hoping
Is a fruitful way of coping
And each forward step you take is one
The world cannot remove?
___________________________

MPA rating:  PG-13 (for language)

Yellow Rose didn’t seem to be on anyone’s radar back in 2019, but it falls into the hidden gem category for me. Set in Texas, the film details the struggles of Filipina teenager Rose Garcia (Eva Noblezada of Broadway’s Hadestown) as she realizes she is an illegal immigrant when her mother (Princess Punzalan) is arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Suddenly without a home or a guardian, she turns to the kindness of strangers and her love of country music to give her a chance at a better life.

With immigration being very much in the news lately, Yellow Rose is both timely and heartfelt, calling out the process of immigration crackdowns while retaining empathy for all affected by it. While one might expect the story to include more anti-immigrant sentiment, the people Rose encounters are nearly all compassionate and helpful, from the kind boy she grows to like (Liam Booth) to the aging country star who recognizes her songwriting talent (Dale Watson, playing himself). On a side note, it’s interesting that both Noblezada and Lea Salonga, who plays her aunt, have played the lead in Miss Saigon on Broadway.

The drama is uniformly genuine, and both Punzalan and Noblezada give award-worthy performances as the mother and daughter who are separated by both walls and plans for the future. Plus, Noblezada (looking and playing much younger than she is) can really sing, and her music being an outlet for her woes goes back to the blues that classic country has voiced in years past. While the film goes a bit too long in the last act and oddly never fully addresses Rose’s most pressing concern of citizenship, it’s a warm-hearted tale that bemoans the system while never losing sight of the people in it.

Best line: (Rose, to Dale, turning her strong emotions into inspiration) “I’ve got some s*** to write.”

Rank:  List Runner-Up

© 2021 S.G. Liput
731 Followers and Counting

News of the World (2020)

Tags

Drama, Western

(For Day 27 of NaPoWriMo, the prompt was for a poem inspired by an entry in the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, so I chose the term occhiolism, defined as “the awareness of the smallness of your perspective.”)

We feel very small when we listen to news,
To stories of others who lead separate lives
That warrant inclusion in public archives
While we muddle on to keep paying our dues.

This occhiolism that weakens our worth
Is no different now than in centuries past.
To hear them months later or by simulcast,
The tales are aloof from our spot on the earth.

The world has its leaders, deciders, and threats
That play on a stage we can’t hope to possess.
Our stage may be smaller, but it is not less,
No different than what any everyman gets.

The play is unscripted; the actor must choose
What happens, what follows, and who can partake.
Minute it may be, but a life is at stake,
A personal struggle that dwarfs global news.
_____________________________

MPA rating:  PG-13

I have a confession: unlike a few past years where I’ve watched all the Best Picture nominees leading up to the Oscars, I haven’t seen a single 2020 nominee. I’ll get to those eventually, but I have seen at least two snubbed but deserving films in Soul and this one. News of the World pairs Tom Hanks once again with Captain Phillips director Paul Greengrass in a change of pace for both of them, an understated western based on a 2016 novel.

Honestly, I would watch Tom Hanks in almost anything, so I was probably predisposed to like News of the World, but it’s a high-quality reminder that the western genre need not be dead. Hanks plays Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd, a former Confederate soldier who now makes a living traveling from town to town in Texas and reading newspapers to anyone willing to listen for a dime. During his travels, he stumbles upon a young girl named Johanna (Helena Zengel) who was kidnapped and raised by the Kiowa tribe and now must be taken to her surviving relatives further south. Their journey becomes a dirt road trip of personal growth and bonding between the two, which is perhaps predictably old-fashioned but no less affecting, especially with such strong acting from the two leads.

News of the World did at least earn Oscar nominations for its Cinematography, Score, Production Design, and Sound, none of which it won, but I’m a bit flummoxed by how little Hanks was honored throughout the awards season. His young costar Zengel at least got a Golden Globe nod, but I can’t help but feel that Hanks and the film as a whole was largely overlooked. Its deliberately low-key pace may bore some viewers, but it has its moments of action to show the Old West’s cutthroat side and explores elements of the time period that haven’t been depicted much on film, such as Kidd’s unusual news-reading vocation and the Southern resentment of the Reconstruction era, not to mention the sight of Tom Hanks riding a horse.

I’m a bit torn on how to rank News of the World, but it ultimately left me with a satisfied warmth that few films have given me recently, so I’ll bite the bullet and give it my highest rating. It might get knocked down by the end of the year, but News of the World is a showcase of both Hanks’ established talent and Zengel’s newcomer promise, an undoubtedly newsworthy pair.

Best line: (Johanna) “To move forward, you must remember first.”

Rank:  List-Worthy

© 2021 S.G. Liput
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Platoon (1986)

Tags

Drama, War

(For Day 21 of NaPoWriMo, the prompt was for a poem that uses repetition to drive the rhythm forward, so I used the loaded words “The war” to do just that.)

The war was far off overseas,
The war between the Vietnamese,
The war of free and Communist,
The war for which we must enlist,
The war our leaders said to fight,
The war that blurred the wrong and right.
The war inspired defiant tunes,
The war that gobbled whole platoons,
The war that made our mothers cry,
The war that never told them why,
The war that screamed in every face.
The war dragged on despite disgrace,
The war that fueled the most debate,
The war the hippies loved to hate,
The war that few could quite defend,
The war that none could comprehend,
The war we did not fight to win,
The war that answered sin for sin,
The war whose end held no success.
The war still ended nonetheless,
The war so far off overseas
The war that was so hard to please.
_______________________________

MPA rating:  R (for much language and violence)

Platoon has long been known to me as the film with that iconic scene of the jungle soldier with his arms raised amid gunfire while Samuel Barber’s haunting Adagio for Strings crescendos in the background. Yet the film itself was never a priority until it happened to come on TV recently. I now see why it’s considered one of the greatest war films ever. I now see why it warranted Best Picture and Best Direction for Oliver Stone, not to mention Best Sound and Film Editing. It’s a challenging watch, but it seems to do the Vietnam War justice, considering it is somewhat based on Stone’s own experiences enlisting for combat in Vietnam.

Charlie Sheen proves he was quite a good actor before his crazier days distracted from that fact, and he serves as Chris Taylor, the stand-in for Stone, an idealistic new recruit who is introduced to the horrors of war and a clash of ideologies between ruthless Sergeant Barnes (Tom Berenger) and kinder Sergeant Elias (Willem Dafoe). While he makes friends along the way (Keith David), his tour of duty is a tour of everything that made the war hellish: the uncooperative Vietnamese and the difficulty of telling foe from victim, the confusion and threat of friendly fire, the danger of losing your soul amid all the violence.

By the end, even separate from Chris’s poetic monologues, it makes a case for peace simply by illustrating how terrible its absence is. With surprising supporting roles from the likes of Johnny Depp, Kevin Dillon, Forest Whitaker, and John C. McGinley and a perfect ‘60s soundtrack punctuated by the contrasting beauty of classical, Platoon is a great film that may not be easy to watch but is undoubtedly worth it.

Best line: (Elias) “What happened today was just the beginning. We’re gonna lose this war.”
(Chris) “Come on. You really think so? Us?”
(Elias) “We been kicking other people’s a**es for so long, I figured it’s time we got ours kicked.”

Rank:  List Runner-Up

© 2021 S.G. Liput
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Don’t Let Go (2019)

Tags

Drama, Sci-fi, Thriller

(For Day 20 of NaPoWriMo, the prompt was to write a sijo, a Korean form similar to haiku but with three longer 14-to-16-syllable lines and ending with a twist.)

I received a call from my niece. Yet I’m afraid to answer.
I can’t be sure what to say, much less to expect from her.
I wished we could talk again, for she died only weeks ago.
_______________________________

MPA rating:  R (some language and violence, mostly at the very end)

I love movies that play with time: time loops, time travel, time displacement, time for dinner. And I’m usually willing to overlook massive plot holes for the joy of seeing a film mess with time in a unique way. Don’t Let Go didn’t get much fanfare upon release, but it’s a sci-fi thriller I thoroughly enjoyed, using its mostly black cast to perfection. As mentioned in the poem, David Oyelowo plays a cop who is crushed when his brother’s whole family is found dead, including his beloved niece Ashley (Storm Reid). To his shock, though, he later receives a call from Ashley and discovers that he’s talking to his niece several days before her murder, prompting them both to figure out how to prevent the crime from two different points in time.

Don’t Let Go never really addresses how its central concept happens; it just exists to make the plot possible, perhaps as a gift from above, and that’s okay. Oyelowo and Reid make a wonderful team, even when separated by time and cell phone, and the mystery remains tense and compelling throughout. I was also pleasantly surprised that it was largely clean of profanity as well, at least until the very end. Also starring Alfred Molina, Mykelti Williamson, and Brian Tyree Henry, Don’t Let Go is an excellent blend of emotional sci-fi and police puzzler that only strengthens my love of quality genre cinema.

Rank:  List Runner-Up (very close to List-Worthy)

© 2021 S.G. Liput
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Resistance (2020)

Tags

Biopic, Drama, History

(For Day 18 of NaPoWriMo, the prompt was to write a poem inspired by one of the chapter titles in Susan G. Wooldridge’s Poemcrazy: Freeing Your Life with Words, and the heading “Controlled Abandon” caught my eye, associating it with any kind of innovation or risk-taking, which can be simply unusual or truly dangerous.)

Upon the walls of cultured art, the few who make the rules
Can mock the fewer down below and designate them fools.
For who but madmen with abandon would attempt to flout
The well-established orthodoxy, confident in clout?
But down below, the darer knows what’s needed to invent,
And every tiny movement made is careful with intent.
The price of forging something new may well survive disdain,
For “madmen” such as these know there is nothing done in vain.

Upon the walls of tyranny, the few who make the rules
Can mock the vulgar down below and designate them fools.
For who but madmen with abandon would resist the State,
Which has the power to enforce its whims without debate?
But down below, the darer knows what’s needed to dissent,
And every tiny movement made is careful with intent.
The price of saving someone else may well result in pain,
But “madmen” such as these know there is nothing done in vain.
_______________________________________

MPA rating:  R (can be intense, but what is actually shown is closer to PG-13)

There are already so many films set in World War II, whether it be on the battlefield or in the Nazi-occupied cities where Jews were threatened, but they never seem to get old. Resistance may fall into the middle pack of such films, but it’s still an excellent period piece/biopic about the early life of Marcel Marceau, who went on to become the world’s most famous mime.

Jesse Eisenberg might not have been my first choice for the role, but he proves to be a compelling figure as a misunderstood artist moved to action by the plight of displaced Jewish children in France. Likewise, Clémence Poésy and Bella Ramsey deliver affecting performances as Marcel’s love interest and a girl he rescues, respectively, while Matthias Schweighöfer is a terror as notorious Nazi Klaus Barbie. The plotline is not especially original but still packs emotional power and occasional menace, and the way that Marceau’s budding talent as a mime is employed to cheer the children is well executed by Eisenberg.

Mime itself has never been of much interest to me, and the film’s final moments may be underwhelming for luddites like me, but its sincerity and historical basis are nonetheless impressive. Resistance may have underperformed due to its release at the start of the pandemic last March, but it deserves more appreciation.

Rank:  List Runner-Up

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Ad Astra (2019)

Tags

Drama, Sci-fi

(For Day 17 of NaPoWriMo, the prompt was to write a poem about the moon, which is galling since I had a movie that was all about the moon just TWO DAYS AGO! So I went with a different movie partially set on the moon, because of course I had another in reserve.)

Space is a nothing, a vacuum complete,
With planetoid motes spinning round in the void.
Yet we on our mote have a course we repeat:
To find and expand, be diffused or destroyed.

But distances mock us, too deadly and vast
For Earth to consider a visit or leap.
We have but one friend in our orbital caste,
A lunar companion whose slope is less steep.

The moon in its course is our first rung to climb,
The first stepping stone, Tenerife to our Spain,
From which human hordes, in a matter of time,
Can strike at the void with one win to their name.
____________________________________________

MPA rating:  PG-13

Ad Astra (Latin for To the Stars) is the kind of movie I wanted to like, just as I wanted to enjoy First Man, but once again a plodding pace and stoic protagonist upend what could have been so much better. In a future where mankind has settled on the moon and Mars and extended a mission as far as Neptune, Roy McBride (Brad Pitt) is an astronaut famed for controlling his emotions under pressure; he is told that his father (Tommy Lee Jones), who disappeared on that Neptune mission, may be alive and perhaps is responsible for some dangerous energy surges threatening Earth. That setup has enormous potential, but Roy has basically buried those emotions so deep that only a trip across the solar system rife with metaphysical introspection can help him overcome his daddy issues.

There are interesting sci-fi concepts, like how the moon has been as commercialized as Earth, reminiscent of Futurama to be honest, but they’re kept to the background. There are moments of action spectacle that instantly boost viewer interest, such as a rover chase on the moon or the film’s incredible opening where Roy falls off a space antenna, but the plot quickly dips back into monotony as Roy narrates every stray thought. Some of it really is deep, paired with visually striking imagery, and certainly better explored than the wordlessness of 2001: A Space Odyssey, but it also feels pretentious and suffers from not really going anywhere, since the result of Roy’s journey isn’t particularly enlightening. I’m not naturally drawn to Brad Pitt like I am to space movies, so Ad Astra is a mixed bag to say the least, a film with a lot on its mind and something missing to make it compelling. In different hands, it might have been epic; as it is, it’s rather forgettable but for its best scenes.

Rank:  Honorable Mention

© 2021 S.G. Liput
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Chappaquiddick (2017)

Tags

Drama, History

(For Day 14 of NaPoWriMo, the prompt suggested a poem about the meaning of my first or last name, so I instead pivoted to delve into the meaning of a far more famous name than mine.)

Kennedy, Kennedy,
That’s what they see.
Not the J or the F or the R or the E.
Kennedy, Kennedy,
Destined for fame,
Merit an afterthought next to the name.

Kennedy, Kennedy,
What did you do?
One minute driving, the next in the stew.
Kennedy, Kennedy,
Eyes everywhere,
They see what they want to, one victim, one heir.

Kennedy, Kennedy,
Justice is blind,
But still that refrain’s at the back of its mind.
Kennedy, Kennedy,
Innocent guilt,
Only a brick in the empire built.
_______________________________

MPA rating:  PG-13

Political films always have the potential to be dicey and controversial, especially when they cover recent events, but with Hollywood’s fascination with scandal of any kind, it’s surprising and perhaps telling that a film about the Chappaquiddick incident wasn’t made until 48 years later and 8 years after Ted Kennedy’s death. For those unfamiliar with the affair, Chappaquiddick is an excellent cinematic history lesson, covering the days surrounding the accident where Senator Edward Kennedy (Jason Clarke) accidentally drove his car off a Massachusetts bridge and left young staffer Mary Jo Kopechne (Kate Mara) to drown.

There are far splashier scandals in American history, considering that this one mainly affected just two people, but the responses due to who the survivor was are both fascinating and disconcerting. Thanks to Kennedy’s family prestige, a team of damage control experts quickly swoop in to assist and cover for his obvious lapses in judgment.

Under such circumstances, it would be easy to paint Kennedy as a callous villain, but the script and Clarke’s subtle performance are not so one-sided, acknowledging the weight of his family expectations and the natural desperation of the situation without exonerating him either. That’s not to say that the film doesn’t have a clear opinion of what should have happened by the end, but I found it to have a welcome balance, perhaps tempered by nearly fifty years of retrospect. Despite solid performances from Ed Helms, Jim Gaffigan, and Clancy Brown, Chappaquiddick does threaten to be dull at times, but the true story has its own built-in interest when it comes to political machinations and tragedy, making itself still relevant today.

Best line: (Ted Kennedy) “Joey, you have flaws. We all do; you said so yourself. Moses had a temper. Peter betrayed Jesus. I have Chappaquiddick.”   (Joe Gargan) “Yeah. Moses had a temper. But he never left a girl at the bottom of the Red Sea.”

Rank:  List Runner-Up

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Outbreak (1995)

Tags

Action, Disaster, Drama

(For Day 13 of NaPoWriMo, the prompt was for a poem that was “a news article you wish would come out tomorrow.” I think everyone would like this one to come true.)

This just in: the virus is gone!
The patients who were sick with it recovered right at dawn.
No one’s coughing; no one’s sore.
The doctors have confirmed what we have all been waiting for.

None seem certain how this came about.
Perhaps an undiscovered expiration date ran out.
Prayers are answered; hopes are met.
The boogeyman of 2020’s no longer a threat.

Stores are open; crowds are no concern.
Masks are being set ablaze to herald their return.
All bad things also have an end.
At last, the fire’s smothered; the wound’s begun to mend.
___________________________

MPA rating: R (mainly for language)

This film and 2011’s Contagion were suddenly extremely popular about a year ago, thanks to a certain virus and shutdowns sparking the need to escape into fiction. I don’t exactly understand why you would distract yourself from a pandemic with a movie about a pandemic, but oh well. Seeing Outbreak after over a year of witnessing how our world has responded to a sudden virus originating from an animal was still fascinating, though, and fairly entertaining too, through that ‘90s disaster movie lens.

Colonel Sam Daniels (Dustin Hoffman) is an army virologist who develops a growing unease after visiting a disease site in Zaire where a 100% death rate has wiped out a village. While his superior (Morgan Freeman) assumes that there is no immediate danger, no one realizes that a monkey carrying the virus has been captured and shipped to the U.S., where infections spread like wildfire (since, like in The Stand, people can’t seem to cover their mouths when they cough), and a California town is quarantined by the military. It’s actually quite a scary scenario with a far worse virus than COVID-19 ever was, and, though it doesn’t probe very deeply into the political side of things, it’s almost as scary to see how the government might crack down, perhaps justifiably, where an extreme national hazard is recognized.

Star-studded with the likes of Cuba Gooding, Jr., Donald Sutherland, Kevin Spacey, Rene Russo, and a young Patrick Dempsey, Outbreak starts out compelling in how it traces the spread of the disease while the scientists then do the same in reverse. However, the latter half devolves into action movie theatrics that extend the runtime, pad plot holes, and compress travel and actions that would likely take days into mere hours for the sake of deadline tension. Entertaining and hitting a bit close to home after a pandemic of our own, Outbreak showcases a disaster extreme that I pray never becomes more real.

Best line: (Sam, using panic to his advantage) “We need all the bills of landing from ships arriving from Africa in the last 3 months. George, shall I cough on you?  (George) “NO!”

Rank:  List Runner-Up

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VC Pick: Cocoon (1985)

Tags

Comedy, Drama, Sci-fi, VC Pick

(For Day 12 of NaPoWriMo, the suggested prompt was a poem using words from a classical dictionary and sci-fi dictionary, but time ran a bit short so I went off-prompt.)

My hair is gray; my back is bent;
My skin is furrowed, eyes are dim.
The man I was has long been spent,
From youthful peak to swift descent,
Till now I can’t remember him.

Your skin has sagged on weakened knees;
Your teeth come out and barely chew.
And yet you make me feel at ease.
Despite our awful memories,
I still can see the girl I knew.

Imagine if, somehow, some way,
We could reclaim our fire before.
No matter what the toll to pay,
I’d spurn the world that very day
If you and I could skip once more.
______________________________

MPA rating: PG-13

It’s a shame upon my blog, but it’s been nearly a year since I afforded my dear VC (Viewing Companion) the chance to choose a movie to watch and review. One more thing to blame on school…. I am rectifying that egregious oversight by highlighting one of her picks, the classic Ron Howard sci-fi Cocoon. Winner of two Oscars (Supporting Actor and Visual Effects), the film is unusual in that it centers upon a Florida retirement home, whose apathetic residents discover an alien secret in a nearby swimming pool.

The cast is especially great, with veterans like Don Ameche, Jessica Tandy, and Wilford Brimley (playing much older than he was at the time) sharing the screen with younger talent like Steve Guttenberg and Brian Dennehy, who plays the nicest, most forgiving alien in movie history. While often warm and humorous, the story successfully humanizes its elderly characters with foibles and tragedies and achieves a unique balance between grim and hopeful subject matter. It’s a shame that the climax drags on too long trying to up the drama, and I tend to think that Don Ameche’s win for Best Supporting Actor was a bit undeserved for this role. Still, Cocoon is otherwise a charming alternative to other first contact films.

Best line: (Ben Luckett, played by Brimley) “So you think it’s like Bernie said? We’re cheating nature?”
(Mary, his wife) “Yes.”
(Ben) “Well, I’ll tell ya, with the way nature’s been cheating us, I don’t mind cheating her a little.”

Rank: List Runner-Up

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