'American Honey' is a Sweet Antidote for the Failing American Dream

British director Andrea Arnold left her home country for the United States for her first feature film set and shot outside of the United Kingdom, using her working class background to expose the life of a young American Honey and her desires for something greater. The Instagram-documentary-like film establishes a modern take on the pursuit of happiness with visuals and audio that invite you on the journey.

American Honey follows the life of Star (Sascha Lane), an 18 year-old girl stuck in a hopeless life assuming more responsibilities than she should, opening with her dumpster diving for food and attempting to hitchhike with two kids that aren't her own. Upon seeing a white van filled with a rambunctious crowd, she allows her curiosity to take over and follows them into a Walmart-esque store. There she meets Jake (Shia LaBeouf) with whom she is immediately hypnotized. Jake breaks out in to dance with his squad as “We Found Love” by Rihanna plays over the speakers before inviting her to join his comrades selling magazines door-to-door across the Midwest. After the minute of spontaneous excitement from meeting Jake, Star rushes home and returns the kids to their biological mother and drops her suffocating life, beginning to pursue her own adventure by joining the ragtag team of semi-delinquents to start an exhilarating life on the open road. Star finds her escape traveling cross-country working during the day and staying in motels and partying by night.

In several interviews the cast explains that Arnold and her casting directors traveled across America in search of their perfect characters. Sasha Lane, who plays the main character Star, was scouted on her spring break in Panama City Beach. With relatively little experience, she gives an exceptionally captivating performance as a tortured girl full of idealism and hopefulness for her modest future. Most of the cast was scouted in the same way. This type of casting allows the actors to be extremely genuine within their characters, which shows in the film from beginning to end. Two actors, however, already had extensive experience under their belt. Shia LaBeouf’s performance as the rat-tail wearing, slightly erratic Jake is one of his best performances in the last decade and one of the best at the Cannes Film Festival. The character Jake is so in tune with LaBeouf’s celebrity persona one can hardly tell the difference. Another stand out performance includes Riley Keough’s portrayal of the ruthless ringleader Krystal who embodies the phrase “if looks could kill.” The performances combined with the cinematography allow the audience to experience the world through Star’s eyes, getting to know best the characters she knows best.

The cast and crew travelled over 10,000 miles shooting on location collecting hours of road trip footage. Stand out Irish cinematographer Robbie Ryan closely captures intimate moments on the road and highlights the off-beat characters without inducing claustrophobia. With a 1:37:1 aspect ratio, the nearly square screen gives a home-movie feel pushing the story forward through snapshots of experiences rather than a traditional plot arc. Images of twisting hair, beautiful landscapes, and candid moments flood the screen for an over all feel good sensation, but the film tackles serious issues such as domestic abuse, morality, and income inequality to represent a world as dynamic and fascinating as the real one.

The “American Honey” soundtrack acts more as a mix tape rather than background noise; I found myself singing and dancing along in my movie theater seat wishing I was jamming out with the windows down. Arnold avoids an instrumental score and goes for a fantastic combination of recognizable tracks each song better than the next. Arnold incorporates a variety of genres including rap, hip-hop, country, and electronic, and by the end of the film we hear a repeat of Rihanna’s “We Found Love,” the group’s favorite, which could not have been a more perfect fit for the film. Hats off to the music supervisor. 

With a practically unrecognizable cast, a non-story plot, and a run time of 162 minutes, the success of Andrea Arnold’s fourth feature film American Honey seemed unlikely, but the Cannes Jury Prize winner immerses you deeply within the lives of the nomadic runaways leaving you wanting to feel the wind in your hair as you explore new lands.

Interview AMERICAN HONEY : Andrea Arnold, Shia Labeouf, Sasha Lane Riley Keough Subscribe to the Festival de Cannes channel: http://bit.ly/FestivaldeCannes-YouTube Our official website: http://www.festival-cannes.com Twitter : https://twitter.com/Festival_Cannes Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/pages/Festival-de-Cannes-Page-Officielle/197710070249937 Instagram: https://instagram.com/festivaldecannes Tumblr: http://festivaldecannesofficiel.tumblr.com/ ******************************************************** Abonnez-nous à la chaîne du Festival de Cannes pour ne rien rater de la Compétition: http://bit.ly/FestivaldeCannes-YouTube Le site officiel du festival de Cannes: http://www.festival-cannes.fr/ Twitter : https://twitter.com/Festival_Cannes Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/pages/Festival-de-Cannes-Page-Officielle/197710070249937 Instagram: https://instagram.com/festivaldecannes Tumblr: http://festivaldecannesofficiel.tumblr.com/

“It’s Only the End of the World” Makes You Wish the World Would End

Despite his past success at Cannes, 27 year-old director Xavier Dolan's sixth feature film premiere at the festival, It’s Only the End of the World fails astronomically. Shockingly, Dolan shared at a press conference Thursday that he considered it his best yet, though Dolan drowns the film’s potential in melodramatic theatrics, heavy-handed metaphors, and insufferable characters.

It’s Only the End of the World - adapted from Jean-Luc Lagarce’s 1990 play - introduces Louis (Gaspard Ullile), a gay playwright returning with an undetermined terminal illness to visit his family for the first time in 12 years. Through voice over, he explains in the most minimal detail his family history and his desire to maintain control of his life despite his insurmountable obstacle. Louis is received by his mother, Martine (Nathalie Baye), overbearing and decorated in matching bright cobalt blue eye shadow and nail polish, his youngest sister, Suzanne (Léa Seydoux), who just cries, his hot-tempered brother, Antoine (Vincent Cassel), who yells at everyone to shut up while only screaming himself, and Antoine’s irritatingly timid wife, Catherine (Marion Cotillard), who stutters through her lines.

The rest of the film is spent between screaming matches filled with useless dialogue and winded monologues and extremely close-up shots. Each character, obviously, lives within their own drama and anxieties, but the excessive shooting style overkills the message. So much of the film is in your face rather than subtly stated and interpreted losing its intrigue. The heated rows serve as the only conflict in the entire film, and the lack of character backstory or development leaves the audience questioning whether the “tension” presented is worthy of the intense hatred and immaturity.

The film takes place almost entirely in one location over the course of one day, which paired with its excessive dramatic dialogue and over the top characters, the film never separates from its stage play feel. Also, Dolan’s focus on the cuckoo clock as a metaphor for Louis’s time running out comes off painfully amateur and poorly executed. The theatrics of it all feel oppressive, forced, and unnecessary.

It's disappointing to see such a gifted cast of renowned actors wasted on a film that offers no depth or attention to its characters. Each performance feels stifled, only acting within the tight parameters of their characters. Cotillard as Catherine stutters as her lines get lost in translation, Seydoux as Suzanne breaks out in tears every scene despite the over emphasis on the lack of relationship between her character and Louis, Baye as Martine hovers and attempts to ignore the palpable tension, and Cassel as Antoine is unbearable as the explosive older brother. Cotillard, Seydoux, Baye and Cassel have all reached international acclaim and prove themselves time and time again, but they are robbed of an opportunity to shine in It’s Only the End of the World.  

Gaspard Ullile, who also stars in another Cannes film, The Dancer, remains tight-lipped and relatively reserved except for the two instances we tap into Louis’s building nostalgia as he trudges closer and closer to death. The two dream-like and romanticized flashbacks paired with booming pop music create a slight depth to the complexity of the psychological effect the disease has on him. Their infrequency, however, makes it feel as if they were an after thought. This is unfortunate as they are the only redeeming parts of the film. The jumbled cinematographic details and flip flopping soundtrack seem erratic and unfocused as if Dolan was on crack during production and post-poduction (as he directed and edited the film) and decided to change aesthetic decisions every three minutes.

The dismissal of any and all homosexual themes from the original play weaken the films perspective. The play is written by a man who lived during the AIDS epidemic and later died of the disease himself in 1995. In Dolan’s film version, we get only brief moments of Louis’s former boyfriend, Pierre, once in a flashback and once more with the mention of his death later in the film. Dolan never alludes to the possibility of AIDS as the disease leading Louis to his death, a detail that would garner more sympathy from the audience. This blatant disregard for the play’s themes leaves the film’s focus simplistically placed only on a white man dealing with his dysfunctional family. How original.

After years of back to back successes at such an impressive age, Dolan finally fails. Now with a flop behind him, we can hope his next film, already in pre-production, won’t be as painful to sit through.

'Café Society' Not a Night Club Worth Visiting

Cannes favorite, Woody Allen, made his 14th festival appearance with Café Society this year. In typical Allen fashion, the film stars big name actors including Jesse Eisenberg, Kristen Stewart, Steve Carell, Blake Lively and Corey Stoll, but despite the big names, Allen’s recent films have garnered most of their major buzz based on negative press. While the films cinematography, production design, and soundtrack are admirable, its poor performances and weak writing make it land on Allen’s growing flop list.

The film begins as Bobby (Jesse Eisenberg) moves from the Bronx out to the west coast hoping to experience Hollywood’s golden age. Once there, his Uncle Phil (Steve Carell) offers him a job. On his first day he meets Vonnie (Kristen Stewart) with whom he is instantly smitten. Vonnie first rejects his advances, but, when she is dumped by her boyfriend, she immediately comes crawling straight towards Bobby like a lost, lonely puppy. Following a series of unfortunate events and misunderstandings, Bobby is left alone and returns heart broken and hardened to New York. A few years pass and it seems as though Bobby’s life heads up hill. He marries Veronica (Blake Lively), has a child, and starts up a wildly successful nightclub with his brother, Ben (Corey Stoll). But, just when his life seems to be going perfectly, the trouble begins: Vonnie pops back into Bobby’s life. They share their dreams and their “what could have beens,” but they never fulfill their unrequited love.

Undoubtedly inspired by himself, Allen portrays Bobby as a naïve and romantic young man who must squash his romantic dreams to continue a life of monogamy and monotony. Eisenberg does a good job in portraying Bobby’s transition from immature young man to cynical adult, but unfortunately, the half-assed performances, unbelievable relationships, and the inclusion of themes repeated in Allen’s body of work make the plot uninteresting. It is normal for an artist to draw inspiration from their personal lives; it is usually encouraged. But, when the artist writes and directs films every other year, their work easily become boring and repetitive. Jesse Eisenberg, now an Allen film vet, plays essentially the same character he played in When in Rome. Instead of an aspiring architect like Jack, Bobby aspires
to work in Hollywood. Instead of falling for a beautiful and intelligent actress unlike any girl he has met before, he falls for a beautiful and intelligent secretary working in Hollywood unlike any girl he has met before. Like Jack, Bobby stays with the safe blonde rather than risking it all for an alluring brunette.

Kristen Stewart’s performance as Vonnie is basically Kristen Stewart wearing more pink dresses than normal. Stewart’s real life “tomboy” attitude peeps through as she attempts to portray a girly, bubbly, and captivating secretary. When adorned in fancy jewels and elegant furs, she looks uncomfortable, as if rejecting her character. In scenes requiring any romantic interaction, she appears hesitant and reserved. Also, casting Steve Carell as a suave and accomplished Hollywood hotshot hinders the believability of his character (typecasting at its finest).

The lack of depth in Stewart’s acting can be easily attributed to the lack of depth of her character. As a matter of fact, the lack of depth of all the female characters. Allen is known for writing idolized and romanticized female characters, but that is no excuse to continue writing such one dimensional, mind-numbing characters film after film. Both Vonnie and Veronica are introduced and sustained on such superficial level that limits the audience’s ability to see them
as more than objects.

With accusations about Woody Allen’s history of sexual abuse, the reveal of Vonnie and Uncle Phil’s relationship is unsettling rather than comical. It definitely does not help that Allen’s indiscretions are under the media microscope even more heavily now thanks to the rape joke at the opening ceremony. On top of the allegations, the lack of chemistry and authenticity in the on-screen relationships between Vonnie and Uncle Phil and Vonnie and Bobby leave the main story line and the jokes falling flat.

The only truly comedic moments include Bobby’s family. Bobby’s large and meddlesome family finds itself in sticky situations as they react to the events in their lives. Sadly, those scenes do not push the story line forward in anyway; they just exist for comedic purposes. Recycled and tired jokes, themes, and plotlines make for a boring and predictable film. Despite its trademark Woody Allen touches, Café Society does not live up to the director’s
past films.

Cafe Society is in theaters July 15th

'Captain America: Civil War' is Pure Comic Book Bliss

After a fairly stagnant summer of mixed to positive reception to Marvel’s two artistic gambles that were Age of Ultron and Ant-Man, the Russo brothers return to the Marvel universe to once again shake it to its foundation after the triumph that was Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and what results is undoubtedly the greatest achievement that a shared universe like this can offer.

Eight years ago, when Tony Stark strapped on that hot-rod red ‘n' gold metal suit for the first time in Iron Man, something like Captain America: Civil War could’ve only been imagined as a glint in Nick Fury’s good eye. The phrase “the Avengers initiative” sounded like goofy nerd nonsense to most audiences in 2008, but it has become almost as ubiquitous as something like “Agent 007” or “May the Force be with you.”

And now after eight solid years of films and universe-building pieces locking into place, finally Marvel feel they don’t have to spend too much time introducing new ideas or characters because by now we’re so familiar with this universe and its inhabitants that it’s no longer necessary. The introduction of characters like Wakandan prince T’Challa (better known as the Black Panther) and Tom Holland as our third Spider-Man in 15 years feels so assured and effortless, it’s strange to recognize this is the first time we’ve met them in Marvel’s cinematic universe. Civil War operates like a true comic book event—a massive, multiple-issue arc that brings in characters both new and familiar to tell an expansive story that somehow maintains both coherence and intimacy in the midst of so much bombastic action.

After the disaster in Sokovia averted by the Avengers during Age of Ultron’s climax, Captain America and the rest are still galavanting around the globe, stopping the bad guys with little to no government oversight. That is, until an honest mistake by newbie Scarlet Witch forces the Avengers to finally face the scrutiny that’s been building among the people of the world since Loki and the Chitauri touched down in New York. Cap feels that the new “Sokovia Accords” will only hinder the team’s ability to do good since they’ve always proven to have the people’s best interests at heart, while his counterpart Tony Stark, plagued by the horrors his creation Ultron caused in Sokovia, thinks the Avengers need some accountability after the mayhem they’ve caused since he took up the mantle of Iron Man.

Like any compelling debate, both sides have great points, and one of Civil War’s greatest strengths is giving both Cap and Iron Man equal reason to righteously feel the way they do. With Marvel’s diligent planning out of the arcs each film should take, the seeds of this diametric opposition have been sown since Iron Man 3 showed us Tony’s post-traumatic reaction to New York and Winter Soldier turned Cap’s trust of the government completely on its head.

Civil War may boast the cast of an Avengers follow-up, but the film’s emotional crux is undoubtedly Cap and his relationship with comrade-turned-communist Bucky Barnes, a through-line begun in Winter Soldier that becomes the heart of Civil War’s conflict. Bucky is all Cap has left of his past life and he’ll do anything to protect him, even at the cost of abandoning his ties with Tony and his counterparts. Luckily for him he isn’t alone, and the various superheroes start forming along party lines, ultimately leading up to a direct confrontation where Cap and Iron Man’s teams have to decide if they really want to punch each other after all they’ve been through together.

The resulting decision to come to blows is where things start to ascend into jaw-dropping spectacle. The showdown of Team Cap and Team Iron Man on the abandoned tarmac is something comic book geeks could’ve only imagined in their wildest fantasies a few years ago, but here it is as the zenith of pure popcorn entertainment. Spider-Man zips around, popping off quip after quip, while Black Panther locks claws with the Winter Soldier; it’s sheer bliss even if we don’t want to see anybody seriously hurt.

Ultimately this desire is what makes the face-off that follows it infinitely more compelling. The long-teased slugfest between Cap and Iron Man is exciting on paper but absolutely devastating to witness, as two friends come to blows in an absolutely heartbreaking moment that shifts this cinematic universe for good.

Captain America: Civil War is an achievement only hinted at in previous Marvel movies, and to see it come to glorious fruition is absolutely mind-blowing. Robert Downey, Jr. turns in his best performance since the first Iron Man, as he’s asked to run an emotional gamut from his standard cocksure, quippy playboy, to a resigned, guilt-ridden participator in the Accords, and ultimately into a wounded child who can only lash out in frustration at the betrayal he’s been faced with. It’s not perfectly paced and has some seriously bad shaky cam/action choreographing in its opening moments, but it’s ultimately the film’s compelling characters that steer Civil War into “best ever” superhero film territory.

'Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice' Is a Disasterpiece of Epic Proportions

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice is a film done half by committee and half by a hack filmmaker, resulting in one of the most baffling tentpole blockbusters in recent memory. 

For all of Man of Steel's issues, there was at least a semblance of hope that dealing with the fallout of Superman's destructive battle in Metropolis would provide an interesting crux for a showdown between comics' two most iconic heroes. Instead Warner Bros. and Zack Snyder don't really shoot themselves in the foot so much as they take a shotgun blast to both kneecaps before this franchise has even truly begun.

To every comic fan out there, these characters probably couldn't be less recognizable, which ends up feeling like a huge miscalculation. And while making such darker and grittier choices when it comes to our titular heroes isn't necessarily a death sentence for a franchise, failing to make an interesting or coherent story certainly should be. For all of the promise that a clash between these two titans should entail, the conflict disappointingly takes a back seat to a mishmash of setups for future movies while failing to have a compelling story or characters of its own.

Even at two and a half plus hours, DC's obsessive desire to catch up with the world-building of Marvel's Avengers means BvS ends up more bloated than a dead whale, covered in pustules meant to tease (or threaten) even more of this tripe. Not to mention it manages to both cram in and bungle some of DC's most iconic comic book runs before we've even had a chance to know or come to like these characters at all.

Everything leading up to the promised battle is..."experimental" editing, we'll call it... where any vestige of film logic simply evaporates almost as soon as it appears. Scenes with virtually no relation appear in sequence with no rhyme or reason (or establishing shots) and it makes following the plot or grasping the buildup towards the climax a Superman-sized feat. And when the two finally do come to blows and the movie starts flailing towards something interesting, the tension is deflated like a sad sigh escaping a wet balloon, which then devolves even further into CGI mayhem and one of the most dramatically underwhelming attempts at emotion in a comic book film to date.

But it would truly take a Herculean effort to reconcile the giant misstep that has been Henry Cavill's Superman. Instead of giving Cavill a single chance to make himself likable after a muted showing in Man of Steel, screenwriters Chris Terrio and David S. Goyer instead double down on the hemming and hawing that is Superman's Christ complex, refusing to give him a single moment of likability or humanity. His laughably unearned relationship with Amy Adams' Lois Lane is still utterly uncompelling and Lois once again never rises above a plot device when their relationship ought to be the warm heart of the film. 

And if Cavill's Superman hits a bum note, his supposed foil is an absolute flatline. Even if Jesse Eisenberg's Lex Luthor was just a more neurotic and eccentric mad scientist than his shrewd businessman counterpart in the comics, it still wouldn't excuse this film's muddled attempt at a motivation for his evil machinations. Luthor's reasoning for pitting the heroes against each other flabbergastingly changes or simply isn't explained and every one of Eisenberg's fidgety attempts to get something meaningful out of the material does not click whatsoever. 

If any character makes it relatively unscathed after this movie's thrashing it's Ben Affleck's Batman, even if he’s transformed from a principled vigilante with a code into a murderous, grim old bastard who doesn’t mind branding his victims so they’ll be viciously killed in prison (seriously). While certainly landing amongst the better film portrayals of the Caped Crusader, it's an unfortunate fact that most of the Batman material here is a less interesting retread of what has come so many times before. For all of Snyder and crew's ass-kissing of Frank Miller's classic The Dark Knight Returns, it would've been nice to use that grizzled incarnation of Batman to explore events in his past never portrayed before onscreen. There's only so many times you can feel something as Thomas and Martha Wayne are gunned down in the street and BvS hardly does anything different in the Bat's backstory (are we 100% sure the scene where young Bruce falls in a well isn't the exact same footage from Batman Begins?). Even Batman's most interesting action sequence where he chases down an armored truck is cheapened when the realization sets in that Christopher Nolan did this so much better barely even eight years ago. 

As for Gal Gadot's Wonder Woman... she's there. She fights. She does some fairly inconsequential Justice League exposition... wait, why was she here again? To just remind us she has a moving coming out next year? Is this whole movie just a DC infomercial?

There's a fascinatingly great superhero tale buried within Batman fighting Superman that should truly stimulate our superhero consciousness, and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice has the unfortunate task of having to balance that interesting story with building an entire cinematic universe over the course of a few hours. For those fleeting moments where our heroes do trade blows there's a spark of movie magic that no hack or studio exec could ever screw up, but it's buried under a two hour mess that tries to cram "DC's Greatest Hits" into a dour, colorless romp of unlikable characters. Not all superhero movies have to be colorful or funny, but at least give us a dramatically satisfying story if we're to hop onboard another extended universe.

Batman vs Superman Dawn of Justice Official Trailer #3 US | Subscribe: http://bit.ly/1O5lo1q | Offizieller German / Deutsch Kinostart: 24 März 2016 Zack Snyder's BATMAN V SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE is in theaters March 25, 2016.

'10 Cloverfield Lane' is Highly Effective Slow-Burn Thriller

Proving lightning can in fact strike twice, the marketing campaign that snuck 10 Cloverfield Lane's teaser onto the Super Bowl lineup did in fact generate that similar ripple of excitement that made Cloverfield an enormous viral success.

 But interestingly, producer JJ Abrams and company opted to distance this installment significantly from the found-footage Godzilla-inspired model that made so many waves in the film world and instead opted for a more straightforward thriller that seemingly has nothing in common with its predecessor.

10 Cloverfield Lane plays like a longform classic episode of The Twilight Zone, with a first act punctuated by some gut-punch thrills and a final two thirds expertly constructed to be one of the most effective slow-burn thrillers in recent memory.  So even when the twists and turns it charts are par for the course in this sort of sci-fi/thriller mix, it’s the blend of perfect pacing and a towering John Goodman that truly separates it from the pack.

Michelle (Scott Pilgrim's Mary Elizabeth Winstead) finds herself locked in an underground bunker with two strangers after a seemingly catastrophic event occurred on the world above. Also trapped is farmboy Emmett (Broadway’s John Gallagher, Jr.), a lovable yokel tinged with regret about missing out on his life before the incident.

Their captor is Howard, with John Goodman playing exactly the type of guy you'd expect to build a massive fallout shelter under his farmhouse. Goodman's awkward yet still somehow menacing personality is just enough to put you on edge despite his best intentions. Goodman is nothing if not affable and that’s why the fact that he could snap at any time on the two youngsters is truly unsettling. It's by far the movie's highlight and yet another gem in the filmography of one of the all-time great actors (forget Leo, where’s Goodman’s Oscar for The Big Lebowski?).

Cloverfield Lane takes its time carefully unfolding the mystery of what happened aboveground as well as what secrets Howard is hiding himself, and the result is a thriller that doesn't rely on jumps or gore and treats its audience with respect rather than contempt. The pacing keeps things chugging along at a thrilling rate and aside from a somewhat underwhelming final ten minutes, 10 Cloverfield Lane is nail-biting fun that's far more than just a cheap marketing gimmick. If this is to be our new horror/sci-fi anthology, let’s not wait another eight years to get the next installment off the ground.

Subscribe to TRAILERS: http://bit.ly/sxaw6h Subscribe to COMING SOON: http://bit.ly/H2vZUn Like us on FACEBOOK: http://bit.ly/1QyRMsE Follow us on TWITTER: http://bit.ly/1ghOWmt 10 Cloverfield Lane Official Trailer #1 (2016) - Mary Elizabeth Winstead, John Goodman, Movie HD Waking up from a car accident, a young woman finds herself in the basement of a man who says he's saved her life from a chemical attack that has left the outside uninhabitable.

With 'Hail, Caesar!' the Coens Don't Want You to Get the Point of Hollywood, and That's the Point

When I saw Star Wars: The Force Awakens in December I also saw the trailer for Hail, Caesar! and remember thinking that this could be one of the Coen Brothers’ best films. That first trailer portrays so many different movie genres, and something about the title screamed classic to me. I pictured future electronic textbooks saying, “The Coen Brothers dominated story telling with their chameleon-like tastes, but once they released Hail, Caesar!, the world simultaneously bowed down in awe of their skills.”

Well, I can’t say I’m not still bowing down to the duo, but at the same time I have no idea what I just watched. The entire film seemed to have been made just to make fun of itself and the film industry. It was like watching a well-produced Adult Swim movie.  But it’s elusive point can be summed up in one of the beginning scenes, where producer Eddie Mannix (Josh Brolin) asks men of multiple faiths whether the movie he’s creating, Hail, Caesar!, will offend anyone religiously. Instantly, one of the men states that a scene in the film where one person jumps from one chariot to the other is not realistic, which leads to the men arguing over who or what God is, and whether Jesus was the son of God. No resolution to Eddie’s question is given, and that’s the point.

Stars such as Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum give us truly impressive introductions to their fictional movie star characters as they dance and swim on fake sound stages. But after that they disappear from the plot entirely, only to be given extremely outlandish conclusions at the end of the film that we the audience just have to accept actually happened. There’s not a solid plot to the entire story, and it’s all in the name of the Christian film that Eddie Mannix is producing with the clueless actor Baird Whitlock, played with ease as always by George Clooney. It’s Just so comical to watch though, because every character seems to have no idea how anything truly works, and yet the point of Eddie’s film is to try and explain who runs the universe to the masses.

But I doubt that this movie will offend people religiously, because the Coen Brothers are literally telling us that films shouldn’t try explaining religion, by simply giving us the story of the incompetent filmmakers who try. 

The reason I really enjoyed this film was because I left the theater with a better understanding about society that has illuminated aspects of spirituality for me more than any religious film I’ve seen before. This is also why I love the Coen brothers. Their “point” is elusive, but it still exists. Overall it’s a fun ride of a film, but if you have absolutely no idea what happens behind and around the camera in order to make a movie, some of the key jokes will go right over your head. It wasn’t the classic that I thought it would be, but as long as you don’t take anything in this film seriously, (seriously anything), you will enjoy Hail, Caesar!.

Hail, Caesar! In Theaters February 5. http://www.hailcaesarmovie.com Four-time Oscar®-winning filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen (No Country for Old Men, True Grit, Fargo) write and direct Hail, Caesar!, an all-star comedy set during the latter years of Hollywood's Golden Age. Starring Josh Brolin, George Clooney, Alden Ehrenreich, Ralph Fiennes, Jonah Hill, Scarlett Johansson, Frances McDormand, Tilda Swinton and Channing Tatum, Hail, Caesar!

Iñárritu Stakes Another Claim for Best Director with 'The Revenant'

The latest film from Alejandro G. Iñárritu is a deeply immersive experience realized by its various conflicts and their depiction through Emmanuel Lubezki’s cinematography. Though The Revenant is set in the early 19th century frontier, the dilemmas faced by both the local Native American tribes and the fur trappers exploiting their land resonate with fundamental conflicts of modern survival. Iñárritu has produced a commentary on the ethics of surviving off the land and amongst other people, examining the right to live for both humans and non-humans, and the power struggle between societies of opposite interests. 

From its earliest opportunity onward, The Revenant establishes a kinship between its audience and nature through beautifully serene landscapes that make us cognizant of how superior the natural world is to our mortal selves. Varying between rising embers of a campfire, snow thawing on pine, and wilting reeds in heavy winter, they serve as indications of the action to come and the conditions of central characters while communicating an array of emotions. 

When trapper and regional expert Hugh Glass (Leonardo DiCaprio) is viciously attacked by a grizzly bear, we gain a sense that nature has been avenged by injuries done to a fur trader. However, Glass seeks his own vengeance as he is left for dead and his son is murdered by fellow trapper John Fitzgerald (Tom Hardy). The film’s leading men are stunning as protagonist and antagonist. DiCaprio impresses with convincing delivery of the Pawnee dialect and Hardy realizes Fitzgerald’s character through calculated deviousness and volatile aggression. 

While The Revenant does not retain the “single-cut” aesthetic which made Birdman a cinematic wonder, Lubezki reemploys long and continuous shots to develop a realistically linear narrative that is sparsely interrupted. Close camerawork accentuates the unpredictability of fight scenes making an unforeseen stab of a knife particularly thrilling. Iñárritu’s foray into filming combat is marked by graphic imagery – cheek bones collapse upon impacts with rifles while arrows penetrate throats and eyes with quicksilver speed. The aforementioned approaches work in tandem to make the scene in which Glass is attacked by a grizzly terrifyingly inescapable and gruesome.

The Revenant maps a frontier of its own through the many directions it pulls its audience, traversing territory between a father’s devotion to his son and the utter helplessness of being at nature’s mercy. Iñárritu capitalizes upon the affinity the audience develops for Glass’s survival, simultaneously questioning our motivations for violence, the imperialist agenda, and our appraisal of life and the world at our disposal.

Quentin Tarantino Titillates With Bloodiest Title to Date, 'The Hateful Eight'

Grandmaster of cinephilia, ultra-violence, and all around cinematic agent provocateur, Quentin Tarantino is one of Hollywood’s most befuddling entities. Regardless of one’s personal view on Tarantino’s oeuvre to date, it is downright damning to argue that Tarantino’s body of work does not, at the very least, pique the general movie-goers’ interest.

Tarantino’s eighth addendum to his bloodlust anthology is The Hateful Eight, presented in resplendent, wide-screen 70-millimeter Panovision. While such a detail may not have been a pertinent morsel of information to most movie goers, one Mr. Tarantino felt it was vital to the film’s release.

The screenplay The Hateful Eight followed a treacherous pathway into becoming a film. Tarantino admitted his first draft of what would eventually become The Hateful Eight had originally been intended as a sequel to his 2013 release, Django Unchained, this time in novel form, called Django in White Hell. Upon deciding the character of Django would not fit in such a story, Tarantino reworked the story into a script that would eventually become the film’s first draft.

Unfortunately, the script for The Hateful Eight leaked shortly after the film’s announcement in January of 2014, and Tarantino threatened to cancel the project altogether. Following a Los Angeles live reading of the leaked script, which featured a number of the finished film’s cast (Samuel L. Jackson, Kurt Russell, Walton Goggins, James Parks, Zoe Bell) in April of 2014, Tarantino announced he was working on two separate drafts with alternate endings.

Fast forward to around the film’s official release, the 70-millimeter “Roadshow” version set to premiere at select theaters (ones that had the proper setup to run 70 mm film) on December 8th, 2015. Sadly, as had become the motif throughout the journey of The Hateful Eight, the film itself was leaked by Hive-CM8, an internet group with a dubious goal of leaking “40 films.”

Despite being torrented on a number platforms and thousands of people, the film finally made its way to its select theater and eventual wide release on Christmas Day with plenty of steam, even with the leak. Tarantino’s preference for shooting in 70 mm cinemascope surely enticed enough cinephiles to see the film in theaters.

The Hateful Eight is a three-hour master class in Tarantino-isms – a film clocking in at a hair over three hours, a magnificent Ennio Morricone score, gratuitous violence, and dark comedic relief that leaves viewers painfully aware of the irony of their own existence.

In short, The Hateful Eight is a post-Civil War character study set in a sequestered haberdashery somewhere amongst the Rockies, following the trials and tribulations surrounding a vicious blizzard, a motley crew of despicable bounty hunters, and conspicuous developments throughout the film.

The Hateful Eight is divided into five chapters, each respective scene being set by Tarantino’s narration. The film opens in the midst of a mountain passage, a stagecoach plowing through the ivory snowdrift. Shortly thereafter, we’re introduced to whom we’re led to believe as the film’s protagonist, one Mr. John “The Hangman” Ruth (Kurt Russell), and his bounty Debbie Domergue (Jennifer Jason Leigh) as they reach an impasse on their journey to Red Rock. The aforementioned impasse would be none other than Civil War-hero-turned-bounty hunter, Marquis Warren (Samuel L. Jackson), who also happened to be in close correspondence with President Abraham Lincoln, proved by the letter kept in his pocket, which becomes an integral aspect of the film.

Warren and Ruth make a pact to give Warren and his slew of bounties transport to Red Rock, but after stopping at Minnie’s Haberdashery a little ways outside of the town of Red Rock. Along the ride, some expository dialogue is exchanged between Warren and Ruth, mostly admiring and sympathetic as Ruth badgers Warren to share his Lincoln letter. Jason-Leigh’s Domergue reveals her truly despicable nature while throwing epithets at Warren and eventually spitting on his Lincoln letter, to which Warren promptly punches her out of the stagecoach. In true Tarantino fashion, the characters in The Hateful Eight are not spared in the slightest when it comes to receiving punishment.

The film spends two whole acts before it reaches Minnie’s Haberdashery, the film’s primary setting. Following their dustup in the stagecoach, driven by the trusty O.B. (James Parks), Ruth, Warren, and Domergue come across a former Confederate sympathizer, Chris Mannix (Walton Goggins), who is coincidentally headed to Red Rock to (supposedly) become the town’s newest sheriff. Ruth is skeptical of the all too convenient run in of two well-known bounty hunters en route to hanging Domergue, but nonetheless allows Mannix to join. The remaining journey to Minnie’s Haberdashery is poignantly filled with deft dialogue on racial inequality and indignation of failing institutions, under the guise of fresh wounds from the Civil War.

When the blizzard beaten travelers finally arrive at Minnie’s Haberdashery, they’re met by the likes of Oswaldo Mobray (Tim Roth) aka “The Little Man,” Bob (Demian Bichir) aka “The Mexican,” Joe Gage aka “The Cow Puncher,” and General Sanford “Sandy” Smithers (Bruce Dern). From the travelers’ arrival at Minnie’s Haberdashery, R-rated hi-jinks ensue, and in the most classic of Tarantino fashion, an all out salvo of verbiage and bloodshed, all within the confines of a singular setting, making The Hateful Eight one of, if not the most violent Tarantino film to date.

Rather than delve into further details surrounding the film’s unique perversions and ultimate outcome, it may be best to give the film one final aerial view. Tarantino manages to combine vengeance, sympathy, pure evil, and cumbersome characters into powerful character study that is at times convoluted, but all in all entertaining. There are powerful performances from Tarantino mainstays (Jackson) and pleasing debuts from first time Tarantino collaborators (Goggins), who manage to survive the film’s pitfalls of elaborate bigotry under the guise of period epithets, and at times unimaginative (albeit amusingly graphic) violence.

The Hateful Eight is certainly one of Tarantino’s best, an exceptional addition to his catalog, but just like the other films in Tarantino’s collection, the film itself is not for the soft minded or the conflict averse. All in all, The Hateful Eight is Tarantino’s most stylized and hellacious effort to date, that not only degrades the characters within the film, but will surely test the tolerance of those who go to see it just the same.

'Carol' Is a Gorgeously Filmed Portrait of Love and Loss

Set amidst a hazy glow of 16mm, Todd Haynes' Carol is a beautifully devastating piece of melancholia. Returning to the familiar '50s backdrop of his tribute to Douglas Sirk, Far From Heaven, Haynes focuses his unusually soft lens on a timid but curious young shop girl named Therese (Rooney Mara) and her affair with the mysterious but intriguing socialite Carol (Cate Blanchett).

Adapted from the Patricia Highsmith's groundbreaking novel The Price of Salt, Carol takes its time in carefully constructing the forbidden romance at the center of the film as something genuine. By taking the time to let it grow, the effusion of romance becomes more cathartic and the heartbreaks become even more achingly painful.

Mara is pitch-perfect as the young Therese, a girl who thought she knew what she wanted until it all comes tumbling down. Her ambitions to discover what she truly wants in life are subverted by her own shyness, and in a role where she's meant to be such a mild-mannered piece of wallpaper, it truly speaks to Mara's talents that she's able to imbue Therese with just the right amount of both optimism and anguish. The scene in which she confesses to Carol she has no idea what she wants because she "says yes to everything" is one of the film's most powerful.

Blanchett too is astonishing as the titular Carol, infusing her elegant socialite airs with a sense of pain, especially in her moving interactions with her young daughter. Blanchett gives Carol this queer sense of aloofness, and even when it seems she is closest to Therese there is still a mysterious "otherness" to the older woman character. Yet once the dramatic punch of the second half hits, she drops all airs of fragility and evolves into something more touchingly humane, giving Carol a sympathetic sense of desperation in her loving pleas.

Seemingly lost among the awards chatter however is the perennially underrated Kyle Chandler as Carol's estranged husband Harge, a man so torn apart by the futility of his marriage but so desperate to make things normal in his life again. When at first it seems his role is simply "the evil ex-husband," it was a pleasant surprise to watch him evolve into something wonderfully more complex, as his love for Carol grows increasingly more strained against the circumstances of her sexuality. 

Forsaking the crisp sharpness of digital photography, cinematographer Edward Lachman opted for the beautiful simplicity of 16mm film and it lends Carol a strikingly gorgeous haze and grit. The breathtakingly composed shots are given the dreamlike qualities of memory, as if groggily recalling the nostalgic minutia of romance: the lingering gaze of a lover, the offhand smile, the squeeze of a shoulder. It's a rush of color but also of feeling, and it makes Carol a truly sensual experience in every sense of the word. 

Todd Haynes beautifully captures the flourishing romance between star-crossed lovers, but also deftly illuminates how tragic this kind of affair felt back in 1951. It's a portrait of the outsider in a way that can truly break your heart, even if it leaves with a sense of optimism, and a gorgeously orchestrated piece of filmmaking with a tender ache that won't fade quickly.