Review: Midnight Special (2016)

Clarity is overrated.  We jump straight into the story of a kidnapped boy, and are left to figure out what's going on from bits of backstory doled out sparingly along the way.

There's not a lot to say about the film without having to delve into things that you probably don't want to know before seeing it. And I don't have the skill do dive neck-deep into analysis of the film...so this is more of an "it's worth seeing, go see it in the theater" blurb.

Every member of the cast is doing good work.  But, to be fair, they all seem to be playing the same character.  This character is a tight-lipped, very serious person who has been touched by something amazing, knows everything they need to know, and has based their whole existence around what should be done with the kidnapped boy.  This doesn't really bother me, but it makes the whole film feel a little flat in the character department.

The one exception to this is Adam Driver's character, but only in one aspect.  He doesn't know everything he needs to know.  His NSA official is trying to sort out a mystery, and gets caught up in what needs to be done about this amazing child.  [minor spoiler] By the end he gets there, knows everything that needs knowing, and is completely on board with one side of the "what do we about Alton" teams.

I would have liked to see Lucas be a little bit of a loose cannon, or there to be  more spark between Roy and Sarah.  Maybe Reverend Meyer could turn up the creepiness, or add a little zing to the muted geekiness of Sevier.  A bit more oomph in the characters, and this would be a classic.

Review: Speaking is Difficult (2016)

Speaking is Difficult indeed.  The film takes its title from a speech by Gabrielle Giffords, the congressional representative from Arizona, who was the victim of an assassination attempt in 2011.  It's a film that wears its call-to-action on its sleeve, and provides a simple insight into many of the most high-profile mass shootings of the past five years.

This insight is in the form of a single 911 call from each shooting, playing over the locations of the shootings in their current state.  One of the most horrifying aspects of this is hearing the 911 operators getting more used to how they react to the ever-increasing number of mass shootings.  "We've got a school shooting" should never be a sentence that becomes common to say.

At a Q&A with director AJ Schnack at the Full Frame Documentary Festival, he told the audience how Speaking is Difficult will be updated with a new segment each time there is another one, but the film will always culminate with the Giffords shooting.  2011 seems to be ground zero for the rapid increase in mass shootings.

Schnack wondered if this is due to the fact that a sitting member of congress could be gunned down, along with 18 others (six of whom died in the attack)...and still nothing is done to bring common sense back into the conversation about guns in America.

You can watch Speaking is Difficult on the Field of Vision website starting today:  https://theintercept.com/fieldofvision/speaking-is-difficult/

Review: Pickle (2016)

Pickle is by far my favorite short of the Full Frame Documentary festival this year.  It's a simple tale of a couple and their slightly-doomed love of pets.

Through animation and interviews, the Nicholsons take us through their history with pets and animals of all sorts.  For every calm and healthy lap-chicken, there are two other birds picked off by predators.  Their mostly-blind dog has outlived the fish who couldn't swim, and the goose's funeral is a reverent affair.

We never get to see the eponymous Pickle, which is a little disappointing...but we do get photos of the paraplegic possum in his hand-crafted cart.  Tom Nicholson brings a rare genius of design and engineering to bear on the physical disabilities of their non-human companions.

More than anything, Pickle is about caring.  Director Amy Nicholson cares deeply for her subjects (her parents), and the whole film positively oozes warm devotion to all living things.  Tom and Debbie are completely at ease, good humored, and a joy to watch.  The line animation used to bring long-dead members of the Nicholson menagerie is fast-moving and witty, giving whimsical life to the characters from their stories.

Not sure how you can see it outside of the festival circuit, but it's worth the price of admission if you have the chance!  There are some screenings at upcoming festivals here: http://www.picklethefish.com/.

Review: Starless Dreams (2016)

It's easy to fall in love with the young women on screen in Starless Dreams. Director Mehrdad Oskouei spent several weeks inside an Iranian state juvenile correctional facility for girls, and put together a beautiful and heartbreaking portrait of world-weary teenagers in a place that, despite being forced confinement, may be a better home than they have ever known.

Inside the dormitory, the inmates are vibrant and emotional. Whatever the situation, at least one girl is off to the side of things, in tears. But there is an incredible amount of joy on display. They play i the snow, or dance and sing raucously to Iranian pop songs...although the lyrics to those songs are often very dark. They sing with gusto songs of being old before their time, and how death awaits. Sometimes pulling the sound crew's boom mike down to them to give their performance that additional sense of flair.

Oskouei's soothing baritone comes from behind the camera, and his subjects respond with raw honesty. Inside the facility, the girls are free to be young. Their shared backgrounds foster an instant sense of camaraderie. There is no prison hierarchy, since all of their stories stem from the same place. They use the community to comfort each other and enjoy the company of peers in a place where they will not be "bothered", a euphemism that creates dread each time it is used.

Avoiding the word "rape" seems deliberate. "Bothered" serves as the official state metaphor for all manner of sexual assault. The bureaucratic process on display is as disturbing the personal stories told. Administrators run down a list of horrors in intake interviews. "Did your mother burn you?", "How did she burn you", and on-and-on. Checking off boxes for situations that *should* trigger criminal charges for their parents. It does seem odd that a government so comfortable with harsh punishments does not use those tactics to protect its most vulnerable.

My favorite scene is a prayer meeting, where the girls brazenly take an Imam to task. The inmates dutifully perform their prayers. But this is followed with an intense question and answer session with the holy man. One of the girls rails against the treatment of women and children, another tells of how the judge called her a bastard.

Shouting through tears, she asks "Where was my sin? Was I there when I was made?"

Starless Dreams heaps as much joy on the viewer as possible, and almost succeeds in giving us faith for their future. The last girl released in the film progresses through utter despair at the thought of going home, to a reconciliation (of sorts) with her family that gives her a sense of giddy hope. But the perfunctory physical contact with her father, as opposed to the enthusiastic embrace of her mother and sister, betray the cold, hard facts of life for a bold and bright young woman in a repressive society.

Review: Lo and Behold, Reveries of the Connected World (2016)

Werner Herzog finds interesting subjects for his documentaries, and then coaxes fascinating conversation out of them. His latest film is no different, and gives us a truly insightful look at how being linked to the people and systems of the world affects how we live.

Lo and Behold, Reveries of the Connected World showcases these people in ten segments, ranging from horrific cyber-bullying to gleeful hackers on the run. Herzog lends a thoughtful and fresh perspective to web-related headlines.

The primary matter illustrated by Lo and Behold is the contrast between how remarkably robustly this system of inter-connected systems brings people together, and the fragility of the online ecosystem. Pioneers involved in building the backbone of the internet in the '60s and '70s explain that the internet wasn't designed with security in mind. Every person active on the internet in the early days could be listed in a paper-and-ink reference book, sorted once by name, and once by email address. A book no bigger than the phone book of a small city...or (if that's an unknown frame of reference) the size of a late-2000s MacBook.

Herzog's film presents a push and pull between those who recognize the incredible potential for the internet to unite, and those who see the dark side of inter-connected society. Whether horror stories of families receiving hideous pictures after an accident, or the sobering possibility of solar flares wiping out the entire web in one fell swoop, throwing modern society into chaos. For every doomsayer though, there is an evangelist offering top-notch education to the masses, or crowd-sourcing cancer research through video gaming.

Each subject is treated with respect bordering on reverence. There is no question that Herzog is interested in his interviewees, and gives them the space to share what is on their minds. When a heartbroken mother states that the internet is the Antichrist, a lesser filmmaker might see an opportunity to marginalize or mock. But in Herzog's hands, we see that this philosophy is born of pain and experience.

Lo and Behold, Reveries of the Connected World  is also immensely entertaining. Screening the film at the Full Frame Documentary Festival with a large audience, there were many times the theater erupted with cheerful laughter, as with the love between a boy and his robotic soccer player. Herzog doesn't really take a side in the pros and cons of the internet, but rather presents a broad section of ideas, presented with flair and tact, and asks us to contemplate our place in the connected world.