23rd Mar2017

Nocturnal Animals (DVD)

by timbaros

nocturnal_animals_375043-2Nocturnal Animals is a haunting thriller that’s dark and very troubling

Tom Ford’s highly anticipated second film, Nocturnal Animals, is both brilliant and confusing, no thanks to it’s three stories in one arc.

Amy Adams is art dealer Susan Morrow (Amy Adams) who lives high above the Hollywood Hills in a seemingly loveless marriage to her philandering husband Hutton (Armie Hammer). One day she receives a book called Nocturnal Animals written by her ex-husband Edward Sheffield (Jake Gyllenhaal, in one of his best performances in years). It’s been 19 years since they broke up, well actually Susan broke it off with him, and she hadn’t heard or seen of him since then. So it’s bit unusual for her to receive a book from him, knowing that he’s been a struggling writer all his life. While her husband is away on one of his many business trips, she settles down to read the book. It’s then that Nocturnal Animals the book becomes a whole second movie, a second movie so brilliantly written, acted, and told that it should’ve been the movie that is Nocturnal Animals.

The book is a tale of revenge, rape and murder, brutal and in your face and it’s directed wholly at Susan. While it’s obvious it’s a work of fiction, it’s brutal and horrific. The book as we see play out tells the story of fictional character Tony (Gyllenhaal) with his wife Laura (Isla Fisher) along with what could be (or not) their daughter – this plot point is not very clear, driving in Texas when they’re menaced by a gang of rednecks led by Ray Marcus (Aaron Taylor-Johnson in a performance you will never forget and for which he won a Golden Globe). The menacing turns much much worse, but only towards the women, and it’s too much to give away here to explain what happens to them. Suffice it to say you will be on the edge of your seat while this story is unravelling.

Nocturnal Animals also replays the beginning of the relationship between Susan and Edward – how they met on a New York City sidewalk, then had a loving relationship, only for Susan to drop him (it’s not clear why she leaves him).

All of this is played out in just under two hours. Nocturnal Animals is a haunting romantic thriller with tension throughout, but it’s also a bit of a letdown after the brilliant A Single Man. Adams doesn’t have much to do except read the book in which the most exciting scenes of the film play out. A couple plot points are head scratching – a phone call Susan makes to her daughter – a real daughter or it she a hallucination due to Susan’s lack of sleep – (nocturnal), and Edward’s grudge for 19 long years – really? Nocturnal Animals is a movie that is so cruel and cynical, a story so much about disloyalty and especially about revenge, and it becomes very very violent, and very very dark, and Ford dedicates it to his husband Richard and their son Zach. A bit narcissistic if you ask me.


Category : DVD
Tags : , , , , ,
Off
13th Mar2017

Nocturnal Animals (DVD)

by timbaros

nocturnal_animals_375043Nocturnal Animals is a haunting thriller that’s dark and very troubling.

Tom Ford’s highly anticipated second film, Nocturnal Animals, is both brilliant and confusing, no thanks to it’s three stories in one arc.

Amy Adams is art dealer Susan Morrow (Amy Adams) who lives high above the Hollywood Hills in a seemingly loveless marriage to her philandering husband Hutton (Armie Hammer). One day she receives a book called Nocturnal Animals written by her ex-husband Edward Sheffield (Jake Gyllenhaal, in one of his best performances in years). It’s been 19 years since they broke up, well actually Susan broke it off with him, and she hadn’t heard or seen of him since then. So it’s bit unusual for her to receive a book from him, knowing that he’s been a struggling writer all his life. While her husband is away on one of his many business trips, she settles down to read the book. It’s then that Nocturnal Animals the book becomes a whole second movie, a second movie so brilliantly written, acted, and told that it should’ve been the movie that is Nocturnal Animals.

The book is a tale of revenge, rape and murder, brutal and in your face and it’s directed wholly at Susan. While it’s obvious it’s a work of fiction, it’s brutal and horrific. The book as we see play out tells the story of fictional character Tony (Gyllenhaal) with his wife Laura (Isla Fisher) along with what could be (or not) their daughter – this plot point is not very clear, driving in Texas when they’re menaced by a gang of rednecks led by Ray Marcus (Aaron Taylor-Johnson in a performance you will never forget and for which he won a Golden Globe Award). The menacing turns much much worse, but only towards the women, and it’s too much to give away here to explain what happens to them. Suffice it to say you will be on the edge of your seat while this story is unravelling. Michael Shannon is very good as cop who is tasked with the investigation of the events (he, instead of Taylor-Johnson, was nominated for an Oscar).

Nocturnal Animals also replays the beginning of the relationship between Susan and Edward – how they met on a New York City sidewalk, then had a loving relationship, only for Susan to drop him (it’s not clear why she leaves him).

All of this is played out in just under two hours. Nocturnal Animals is a haunting romantic thriller with tension throughout, but it’s also a bit of a letdown after the brilliant A Single Man. Adams doesn’t have much to do except read the book in which the most exciting scenes of the film play out. A couple plot points are head scratching – a phone call Susan makes to her daughter – a real daughter or it she a hallucination due to Susan’s lack of sleep – (nocturnal), and Edward’s grudge for 19 long years – really? Nocturnal Animals is a movie that is so cruel and cynical, a story so much about disloyalty and especially about revenge, and it becomes very very violent, and very very dark, and Ford dedicates it to his husband Richard and their son Zach. A bit narcissistic if you ask me.

Category : DVD
Tags : , , , , , ,
Off
21st Feb2016

Freeheld (Film)

by timbaros
DSC_2139.NEF

DSC_2139.NEF

A dying female police officer struggles to get her benefits passed on to her female domestic partner in the new film ‘Freeheld.’

Starring Oscar Winner Julianne Moore (last year’s ‘Still Alice’), Moore plays the real-life Laurel Hester, an Ocean County New Jersey police detective who is diagnosed with terminal cancer at the age of 48. But before she was diagnosed with cancer, she meets Stacie Leigh Andree (Ellen Page – ‘Juno’ and ‘Inception’), on a Lesbian volleyball team. Andree is 19 years younger than Hester, but they’re both smitten with each other, enough so that they decide to move in together, in a house that’s purchased by Hester.

But Hester is not out at work, and she continues to tell her police partner Dane Wells (Michael Shannon) that Andree is her roommate. It takes a bit of time, and courage, for Hester to confirm to Wells what he’s always suspected – that Hester is a Lesbian. It’s not long after that when Hester is diagnosed with rapidly spreading lung cancer. Hester is given a bad prognosis, especially after the cancer spreads to her brain, so she knows that she’s going to die. Her wish is to leave her benefits to Andree, but she’s told that this is not allowed for same-sex domestic partners. She appeals to the county legislators (a/k/a freeholders) for them to allow her pension to be passed to Andree, but the all-male panel of five refuse to do so. Although New Jersey counties have the option to extend pension benefits to domestic partners, the Ocean County Freeholders do not do this for her. Enter gay lawyer and activist Steven Goldstein (Steve Carell – trying to ante up an Oscar nomination in a very campy role), the chair of Garden State Equality – a powerful gay activist lobbying group – who, along with many other activists, protests to the freeholders to allow Hester’s benefits to pass to Andree. It’s a fight that they’re not going to give up, but Hester’s clock is running out.

‘Freeheld,’ named as such because of the freeholders, is based on the 2007 documentary of the same name. It’s a documentary that told the same story as the current movie, but features Andree and the rest of the people that knew and worked with Hester, and includes the local media discussing the case. Why make a movie of an excellent documentary that already exists? The documentary was made by Cynthia Wade, who is listed as a producer on this film – and directed by relatively unknown Peter Sollett and written by Ron Nyswaner. Why put such an important movie into these two film novices hands? ‘Freeheld’ doesn’t quite work as a movie. While the acting by the female leads and Shannon are very good, it’s Carrell who’s way over the top as the activist gay lawyer. He’s a gay cartoon character come to life! Also, we’ve already recently seen Moore dying in her last film – ‘Still Alice’ – so it’s puzzling why she would follow up that with this movie where she’s dying again. It appears that the filmmakers were gunning for Oscar nominations by making this film with it’s timely subject matter, but at best it’s a mediocre film that’s marred down by a poor cookie cutter script and direction that’s not very realistic with scenes that appear to be staged. It’s an important story to tell but best to rent the 2007 documentary instead.

Category : Film
Tags : , , , , , , ,
Off