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Movie Review: ‘Private Life’ is a funny, emotional story and one of 2018’s best films

Aaron Charles
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Movie Review: ‘Private Life’ is a funny, emotional story and one of 2018’s best films

Director: Tamara Jenkins
Writers: Tamara Jenkins
Stars: Kathryn Hahn, Paul Giamatti, John Carroll Lynch

Synopsis: An author (Hahn) is undergoing multiple fertility therapies to get pregnant, putting her relationship with her husband (Giamatti) on edge.

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Every film has a story. Good films are built upon a good one. But even good films can be afflicted with a case of tangential stories – scenes or characters that distract from the story at the heart of the film. It’s the best films that follow their story with a single-mindedness and unflinching attention that invites us to lean into the story unfolding before our eyes. Private Life, the latest from Tamara Jenkins, is just such a film and it is surely one of the best of the year.

The story at hand is about Rachel (Kathryn Hahn) and Richard (Paul Giamatti), a couple struggling with infertility and the options they have to get around it. They have tried everything. We meet them in the first scene as they are attempting an IVF procedure. Time is running out. Rachel is 41 and Richard is 47. They keep reminding themselves of the mantra they’ve heard from doctors – “You only need one good egg.” – but it’s quickly becoming more wish than hope.

Giamatti is certainly one of the underappreciated treasures in cinema today. He always brings something extra to his roles. He is one of the best actors working today when it comes to depicting frustration, and he plums those depths in an aching fashion here. Hahn has long been an underappreciated actress too. She is probably most well-known for her comedic roles in film and television, but she too always elevates the material she is given. Here, I think she gives a career-high of a performance, and her work was my favorite in the film.

Despite the emotional material, this film is hilarious. Much of that is owed to Giamatti and Hahn, but the script by Jenkins finds the humor in even heavy moments. The script also does an incredible job of giving us the information we need. Most of us probably do not know the finer points of the medical procedures here, but we get all the information we need to follow the story and never too much to pull us out of it.

I was also moved by the film’s music and cinematography. The music is by Adam Bennati (coordinator), Ben Holiday (editor), and Howard Paar (supervisor) and the cinematography is by Christos Voudouris. Both elements work together in powerful ways, especially in vignettes sprinkled into various points of the film – the sun through the trees outside a window on a car ride or leaves flying into the air during seemingly mundane lawn chores. This film has surprising treasures in store that you won’t want to miss.

The film shifts when Rachel and Richard’s “niece” Sadie (Kayli Carter) comes to live with them in their New York apartment. I put niece in quotations because she is not really related to either of them. Sadie’s father Charlie (John Carroll Lynch) is Richard’s step-brother. Once again, the script does a great job of spelling out the particulars so that we don’t get confused. Sadie recently dropped out of college and is pursuing a writing career. She is excited to live with Rachel (a playwright and published author) and Richard (a former theater actor), not only because they are family to her but because of their influence on her art. Soon, Rachel and Richard become equally interested in the impact Sadie can have on their lives.

Early on in the film, a doctor mentions that they should consider third-party reproductive options. Rachel won’t consider it. That is, until they consider that Sadie could be the perfect candidate. They ask her – in a scene that cranks up the awkwardness and humor – and she, somewhat surprisingly, is interested. Her mother Cynthia (Molly Shannon), however, is not interested. She learns about this plan at their Thanksgiving dinner table – in a scene that REALLY cranks up the awkwardness and humor – and she has a…hard time adjusting.

I’ve gotten pretty far into this review without mentioning it, but I guess I should just come out and say it – yes, this is a Netflix film. And while that fact comes with a stigma for many cinephiles, don’t let it keep you from seeing a truly impressive film. I’m not sure how many year-end lists this film will end up on, but it will probably end up on mine. In any case, Netflix has been producing fine films now for at least the last year, if not longer. Mudbound, The Meyerowitz Stories, and To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before are all impressive films in their own right and that doesn’t even account for Netlix’s soon-to-be-released films like Roma, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, and next year’s The Irishman. If names like Cuaron, Coen, and Scorsese aren’t bothered by the Netflix logo, then I don’t think we should be.

I won’t go any farther into a discussion of this film’s plot, because you really should go see it for yourself. Suffice it to say that the story takes surprising turns and emotional twists. But it never loses its humor and, on top of that, it never loses sight of the story at its heart. That is surely a testament to the fine screenplay and the impressive acting performances. I can’t say it enough – this is one of the best films of the year. Go log into your Netflix account or find someone else’s. No matter how you do it, you’ll want to see this film.

Overall Grade: A

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Hear our podcast review on Extra Film, coming soon!

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Featured: M For Masterpiece – Fritz Lang’s Psychological Stunner

Brian Susbielles
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Featured: M For Masterpiece – Fritz Lang’s Psychological Stunner

One of my Top 10 Criterion films, the great German director Fritz Lang, two years before the rise of Hitler and his exile from his home, produced a stunning film that haunts viewers from the opening sequence. A group of children plays a game of “eenie, meanie, meanie, moe,” and then exit school for the day. Their mothers are preparing for their return. One child, a young girl named Elsie, is playing with a ball down the street when she is approached by a man only in a shadow whistling, “In The Hall Of The Mountain King.” He buys a balloon for Elsie and then goes missing, with the ball rolling in a field, the balloon flying into telephone lines, and Elise’s mother calling for her with no response. She is not the first child to go after multiple children have been murdered. From there, we are thrust into a horrifying place that lives on a thin electric wire.

In motion comes the high anxiety of a society who becomes increasingly paranoid and jump at the moment a suspect is apprehended. The police can do what they can but cannot control the public frenzy ready to lynch someone at a moment’s notice. Legal advancements such as fingerprints from the taunting notes are utilized, but nothing popping up. The chief of police orders the raids of underground bars run by the city’s organized crime bosses. With their business doing badly because of the raids, they decide to become vigilantes, use beggars as spies, and run their own type of court for the killer. The blind beggar who sold the balloon to Elsie recognizes the killer by whistle and the chase is on to get to him before the police do. A chase in and out of a building leads to a kangaroo court inside an abandoned brewery, reflecting the vigilantism and moral panic of a Germany in fracture over demonic killers and “loose morals” that the Nazis would pounce on.

In his first film with sound, Lang does not use it too much and avoids mixing in music at all. The mood is as eerie as it can be without it; only the imagery is needed to convey the darkness of the entire mise en scene. This is the leitmotif, a recurring musical phrase that was usually seen in operas. Even the title only needs one letter to explain who is it – Mörder, “murderer” in German. Before we see the killer, Hans Beckert, we hear his whistle and his voice. Then, when we first see him in the flesh; he does not need to show us the killings because the sight of the killer himself is grotesque in nature. Again, resorting to visuals, the chalked M is put on Beckert’s overcoat by another beggar who is warned that he is the murderer. Beckert looking over his shoulder and seeing that he is, another word starting with an M, marked. This is the face of horror on a piece of horror delivered flawlessly by Peter Lorre.

This was Lorre’s first starring role after years as a vaudeville comedian. It made him an international star very much that when he also fled Germany in 1933, he was granted asylum in the UK and cast by Alfred Hitchcock in The Man Who Knew Too Much, the first of several roles as a villain that carried into Hollywood. Before his low-key sinister tone in The Maltese Falcon and Casablanca, he gave, for a killer, a monologue that draws a line between criminals of choice – the kangaroo court, as mentioned – and the criminal that lives in his mind that controls the urge to kill. As he screams out, “I can not help myself! I have no control over this evil thing that is inside me. The fire, the voices, the torment! Who knows what it is like to be me?” Hans Beckert is evil and he knows it – even if it’s beyond his control. Criminal psychology was something misunderstood back then; a killer is a killer and the Germans went on to execute their killers by the hangman’s noose or by guillotine. There was no respect of humanity such people who felt the inner beast. Yet, Lang puts out there a voice of a madman who would never have been listened to, even by the courts.

This was in the era of political and economic catastrophe from the Great Depression and the growing rise of Bolshevism. The Nazis and Adolph Hitler took the social heat at the time and turned on its head into the power they would force themselves into and blow up in a dozen years. They even took the clip of Lorre’s monologue and re-edited it into an anti-Semitic propaganda film as well as a reason to keep capital punishment as a way of weeding out society’s diseased figures. Lang’s last film, The Testament Of Dr. Mabuse, was his last film in Germany when Joseph Goebbels tried to recruit him into his Ministry of Propaganda. Lang considered M to be his favorite because of the social criticism of child neglect and the warning, in a time of serial killers in Germany’s 20s (Peter Kurten, Carl Grossman, and Freidrich Haarmann), is simplified in the film’s final line by Elsie’s mourning mother. “One has to keep closer watch over the children. All of you.”

Follow me on Twitter: @BrianSusbielles

Movie Review: ‘The Sisters Brothers’ is a surprisingly tender reflection on classic westerns and brotherly obligation

Jay Ledbetter
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Movie Review: ‘The Sisters Brothers’ is a surprisingly tender reflection on classic westerns and brotherly obligation

Director: Jacques Audiard
Writers: Jacques Audiard, Thomas Bidegain
Stars: John C. Reilly, Joaquin Phoenix, Jake Gyllenhaal

Synopsis: In 1850s Oregon, a gold prospector is chased by the infamous duo of assassins, the Sisters brothers.

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The Sister Brothers is a film that both embraces its genre roots and transcends its genre shackles. While its title sounds more like a John C. Reilly collaboration with with Ferrell than a tender meditation on the implications of the sins of the father (amongst many other things), it is one with Joaquin Phoenix that manages to flip the Western on its head and creates a personality all its own. It is 2018’s version of Unforgiven with a biting wit and a touch of the fantastical. I can’t offer many more flattering comparisons than that. Instead of a reflection on a history of lonely violence in old age, it is a reflection on a mid-life crisis in the face of violence alongside one’s brother. It manages to indulge in the mundane and the hyper-quirky. The idea of brushing teeth has never felt more cathartic than it does in The Sisters Brothers. The film’s combination of period setting with contemporary sensibilities makes for one of the most unique theatrical experiences in recent memory. There is nothing about this film that isn’t transcendently good. John C. Reilly and Joaquin Phoenix give two of the best lead performances of the year, Jake Gyllenhaal and Riz Ahmed exercise maximum efficiency in roles that would be thankless in the hands of lesser performers and Jacques Audiard practices incredibly creative filmmaking in a genre that often gets bogged down in its own tropes. It is, as of the time of this writing, my favorite film of the year. It takes a special hand at the helm of a film to combine the humor, tension, pathos, and beauty of The Sisters Brothers. Jacques Audiard possesses that special hand.

The Sisters Brothers is the story of, you guessed it, the brothers Sisters, Charlie and Eli. As different as the two are, they have managed to become one of the most feared pairs of assassins in the West. They are tasked with obtaining a secret formula that shines a literal light on the gold that so many souls traveled West for in the 1850s from a rather unassuming chemist, Hermann Kermit Warm, played by Riz Ahmed. From the film’s first scene, it is clear that The Sisters Brothers accomplish whatever violent tasks are put in front of them with relative ease, in an exchange of bullets presented with a tremendously visually enthralling sequence that sucks the viewer in from the jump. We are thrown into the film with a series of flashes of light in the dead of night provided by the ignition of Old West pistols. It immediately establishes a sense of time and place. The implied violence of that early scene becomes increasingly more explicit as the film goes on, consistently upping the anxiety with each successive shootout.

Through that violence (and the actions they both take in the aftermath of that violence), we discover so much about the lives of our exceptionally complex protagonists. Eli resents Charlie in a myriad of ways, but he feels an obligation to continue their business for reasons we find out about over the course of the film. These revelations occur gradually but result in a series of moments in the film’s final act that show Eli display several exquisite releases of emotion that left me shaking with a sense of sadness and empathy. I cannot overstate how spectacular Reilly is in this role. His career began with great performances in films from the likes of Paul Thomas Anderson, Terrence Malick, and Martin Scorsese, but most modern audience members will only know him from the comedies that have occupied his filmography over the last decade-and-a-half. We will all be better off if he continues to tackle roles like, this that utilize his impeccable comedic timing as well as his sensitive doofiness.

Reilly and Phoenix represent two of the best actors when it comes to playing pathetic characters that you can’t help but root for. In films from Magnolia to Chicago to The Sisters Brothers, Reilly has shown an innate ability to make you feel for a man who lacks the self-confidence, for one reason or another, to be himself and reach out for his dreams. Phoenix, on the other hand, has proven to be an empathetic prick, capable of getting himself on your side no matter how insufferable he seems on the surface (films like The Master and Inherent Vice immediately spring to mind). More than any of his contemporaries, Phoenix is able to make his flaws endearing. He is not naturally charming, but he may be the most earnest actor we have.

In these two spectacular lead performances, we are able to see The Sisters Brothers through a precise lens that shows the Wild West in a light that dives into the opulence of Western expansion as much as the griminess that came with the lifestyle. At one point, the brothers stay in a hotel with (relatively) modern plumbing, which provides them with a heartfelt escape from their life of murder and resentment that provides an element most modern Westerns, no matter how subversive, fail to achieve.

Audiard shines in moments where the brothers are overwhelmed by either awe or exhaustion. His ability to show modern quandaries in the context of the Old West is uncanny. Despite being set over 150 years ago, The Sisters Brothers feels like a film made for all audiences. The grit of the era may not be entirely relevant to today’s audiences, but the ideas of brotherly obligation, capitalist inclinations and a helplessness in the face of the past are timeless. The film is as funny, violent, and gorgeous as the marketing would suggest, but nothing could have prepared me for how tender the film is. You will find no film this year that presents its characters with more respect and care than The Sisters Brothers. Like our own lives, the lives of Eli and Charlie Sisters teeter from hilarious to melodramatic without any warning. Like the best of the Coen Brothers, The Sisters Brothers manages to capture reality in a heightened narrative. Even when the film verges on the ridiculous, it feels true to life.

The plot of the film is unpredictable and the B-plot, featuring Gyllenhaal and Ahmed, provides a more grounded source of drama with a wonderful flourish of fantasy that makes the story, at times, feel like a fairy tale. Whenever this happens, though, we see a violent shootout or are transported to a saloon full of debauchery of all kinds. Audiard strips down the genre by showing the traditional portrayal of the Old West before pulling the carpet out from under the audience’s feet, showing the harsh realities of the era. There is a sense of wonder attached to scientific advances, a fascinating spin on a genre that has always indulged the majesty of nature.

Toothbrushes and fancy hotels represent an escape from the lives the Sisters Brothers have led, and that is the main thematic thrust. However, the brothers may simply be too ingrained in their life of murder to ever escape. Their pasts have compounded to create a mountain of bodies preventing them from finding love or freedom. Over time, Charlie and Eli both come to yearn for a new beginning and, for the first time, it seems possible. Each of brothers coming to this conclusion is treated with an inspiring amount of care. The characters always feel like themselves, even as their worldviews change. The events of the film build on each other to create moments of catharsis, pain, and heartbreak that moved me to my very core. It is a movie that works as a character study, Wild West adventure, and a unique coming-of-age film all at once. You will be hard-pressed to find a film that walks a thin emotional and narrative line as deftly as The Sisters Brothers.

Overall Grade: A-

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Hear our podcast review on Extra Film, coming soon!

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Poll: Which Damien Chazelle film is your tempo – ‘Whiplash’ or ‘La La Land’?

JD Duran
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Poll: Which Damien Chazelle film is your tempo – ‘Whiplash’ or ‘La La Land’?

Happy First Man week everyone! Damien Chazelle is one of the best up-and-coming directors we’ve seen over the last few years, with both Whiplash and La La Land being hits with critics and audiences alike. His next film, First Man, is probably not going to be any different. So for this week’s poll, we simply wanted to ask which film of his is more your tempo. Whiplash and La La Land are very different films despite jazz music driving both of them, so it should be intersting to see how this plays out.

Where do you stand?


Movie Review: Chazelle, Gosling majestically fly us to the moon in ‘First Man’

Ryan McQuade
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Movie Review: Chazelle, Gosling majestically fly us to the moon in ‘First Man’

Director: Damien Chazelle
Writers: Josh Singer (screenplay by), James R. Hansen (based on the book by)
Stars: Ryan Gosling, Claire Foy, Jason Clarke, Kyle Chandler

Synopsis: A look at the life of the astronaut, Neil Armstrong, and the legendary space mission that led him to become the first man to walk on the Moon on July 20, 1969.

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Damien Chazelle and I have had an up and down relationship over the last couple of years. I thought his first film, Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench, was a good first effort that laid a lot of the ground work for his second film Whiplash. Whiplash was one of my favorite films of 2014 and was one of the most daring, tense films I had seen from this decade. So going two for two so far in his filmography, my anticipation was at its all-time high when 2016’s La La Land came out, and while there are aspects of the film I like, I was one of those people that found it to be over hyped and left me more empty than optimistic once the first screening reactions faded away. So a lot questions came running through my head when I found out that the youngest Academy Award winner for Best Director was making his space movie about the single biggest space moment in not just American history but space history period. One could definitely make the argument that I was very skeptical about this project but as every critic should do, I cleared out my La La Land bias, and went into the movie with an open mind. And upon walking out of my screening, I was smiling because I can say that Damien Chazelle has got back on track and made a film that is one of the immersive film going experiences of the year.

First Man follows the key moments of Neil Armstrong’s life during the 1960’s. We met Armstrong, played by La La Land alumni Ryan Gosling, at a time in his life where he and his family need to make a fresh start after a family tragedy has hit the family. His family moves to Houston where he goes to work for NASA, and with more pain that follows him on the job, and social and political pressures mounting, Armstrong and his team set out to be the first to land on the moon. But while the pressures of the job are building on a global stage, it’s his home life with his wife Janet (Claire Foy) and his sons that starts to hang in the balance. Armstrong becomes intensely focused on the task at hand, leading to obsession, and wanting nothing more than walk on the moon, for reasons you don’t find out about till the end of the film.

Obsession is something that Chazelle is not uncommon in showing within his films, with Whiplash being about a drummer’s obsession to become the best, with La La Land being about two people wanting to become famous even if that means their love has to die. But with First Man, Chazelle takes the nob and turns it to eleven, and that makes sense because the mission these characters are facing is not easy. The way that Chazelle shoots ever shot of the astronauts in the space or in the space shuttles oozes with tension and risks at an all-time high for Armstrong and his fellow astronauts. Chazelle’s attention to detail is so focused due in large part to Josh Singer writing the script and allowing Chazelle to focus on his directing strengths and thus making this film flourish.

Gosling is the perfect person to play Chazelle/Singer’s vision of Armstrong, which is quiet, calculated yet confident man that will finish his mission at all costs. His interactions with people, including his family, are cold yet not his fault because as more trauma he has continue to face, the more he throws himself into this mission and never looks back. With a performance that is a combination of his performances from Drive and Blade Runner 2049, Gosling brings Armstrong to life and makes us thoroughly invested in this journey till the very end even though we know how it’s going to end. Foy gives a small yet powerful performance and shows that she can stand toe to toe with Gosling with as he is in every scene of the film. She shows that while Neil was fighting to get to space, Janet was the real one in the relationship fighting to keep it together. She is the only one that can get to him and when she does in the end, it makes him face his fears, and no not the mission to go to the moon, but his life on earth.

The film has a decent supporting cast with Kyle Chandler, Jason Clarke and Cory Stoll but they are mostly there to help Gosling and Foy and become a little wasted. The cinematography in the film is fantastic and for his first film not about music, Chazelle gets the best score of any of his films from composer Justin Hurwitz, one that might just be my favorite score of the year so far. Along with the great score is the wonderful sound design that makes you feel like you are exactly in Armstrong’s seat and can feel ever vibration. The only complaint I would make is that the films editing does seem to be a little messy at times but that doesn’t fully ruin the experience of the film. Overall, First Man is a technical marvel and Chazelle has made one of the best films of the year. He has won be back over, for now, and I’m looking forward to seeing what he will have in store for us down the road, and hoping it continues the trend in this film and doesn’t involve more jazz.

Overall Grade: A

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Hear our podcast review on Episode 295, coming soon!

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List: Top 3 Musical Performances

JD Duran
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List: Top 3 Musical Performances

This week on Episode 294 of the InSession Film Podcast, inspired by A Star is Born, we discussed our Top 3 musical performances in film. Often times when you think about “musical performances” in movies, you think about great musicals such as Singin’ in the Rain or The Sound of Music. However, for this list, we did not consider traditional musicals in the vein of those films, but rather we considered the musical components from narrative dramas that heavily influenced its characters in one way or another. And even more specifically, we did not look at the acting performance per se (although that’s a part of it), but rather the performance of the music itself and how that drives certain scenes or sequences. So, a lot of criteria this week but it made for an interesting look at music in film. That said, here are our lists:

(Note: Please keep in mind that we each had different criteria for our selections)

JD:

1) “Hang Me” – Inside Llewyn Davis
2) “Falling Slowly” – Once
3) Ending Sequence – Whiplash

Brendan:

1) “When Your Minds Made Up” – Once
2) “Break On Through (To The Other Side)” – The Doors
3) “Please Mr. Kennedy” – Inside Llewyn Davis

Erik:

1) “I’ve Seen It All” – Dancer in the Dark
2) “My Way” – Sid & Nancy
3) “New York, New York” – Shame

Honorable Mentions (Combined)

“Jonny B Goode” – Back to the Future
“A Waltz for a Night” – Before Sunset
“Save Me” – Magnolia
“I Love You All” – Frank
“I’ve Never Been Loved Before” – Born to Be Blue
“Drive It Like You Stole It” – Sing Street
Marcus Rap – Short Term 12
Detroit Concert – Straight Outta Compton
Battles – 8 Mile
Cocaine Blues – Walk the Line
“Speak Low” – Phoenix
Concert – School of Rock
Bohemian Rhapsody – Wayne’s World
Ballroom Blitz – Wayne’s World
Afternoon Delight – Anchorman
“Jumper” – Yes Man
The Riff-Off – Pitch Perfect
“No Dames” – Hail, Caesar
“Blood Pollution” – Rockstar
“Daisy Bell” – 2001: A Space Odyssey
“This Poem Sucks” – So I Married An Axe Murderer
“A Kiss At The End Of The Rainbow” – A Might Wind
“Here Comes Your Man” – (500) Days of Summer
“Every Sperm Is Sacred” – Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life
“Man of Constant Sorrow” – O Brother Where Art Thou
“Fallin’ and Flyin’ – Crazy Heart
“The Weary Kind” – Crazy Heart
Dracula Musical – Forgetting Sarah Marshall
“The Clap” – Get Him to the Greek
“Por Ti Vorlare” – Step Brothers
Pop Star: Never Stop Never Stopping
This is Spinal Tap
The Commitments

Hopefully you guys enjoyed our lists and if you agree or disagree with us, let us know in the comment section below. As noted above, there are many, many options for this list depending on your criteria and how you wanted to define musical performances. That being said, what would be your Top 3? Leave a comment in the comment section or email us at [email protected].

For the entire podcast, click here or listen below.

For more lists done by the InSession Film crew and other guests, be sure see our Top 3 Movie Lists page.

Podcast: A Star is Born / Top 3 Musical Performances – Episode 294

JD Duran
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Podcast: A Star is Born / Top 3 Musical Performances – Episode 294

This week’s episode is brought to you by Freshbooks. Sign up today and get your first 30-days free!

This week on the InSession Film Podcast, Erik Anderson from Awards Watch joins us to discuss Bradley Cooper’s directorial debut in A Star is Born and our Top 3 musical performances in film! JD also gives his thoughts on The Hate U Give and we talk about movie remakes for our poll.

Hugh thanks to Erik for coming on the show this week, we are big fans of his work and he did not disappoint at all. We had a great time and look forward to getting him back soon. Regardless of how you feel about A Star is Born, we are confident (or at least hopeful) you’ll enjoy the conversation.

On that note, check out this week’s show and let us know what you think in the comment section. Thanks for listening and for supporting the InSession Film Podcast!

– Movie Review: A Star is Born (6:17)
Director: Bradley Cooper
Writer: Eric Roth, Bradley Cooper
Stars: Lady Gaga, Bradley Cooper, Sam Elliott

– Notes / JD Reviews The Hate U Give (47:25)
One of the best surprises of 2018 is a little known film from director George Tillman Jr. called The Hate U Give. The reviews have been very positive and JD wanted to add his voice to that chorus of praise and give a few reasons for you to see it this weekend.

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RELATED: Listen to Episode 289 of the InSession Film Podcast where we discussed 2001: A Space Odyssey!

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– Top 3 Musical Performances (1:02:16)
Often times when you think about “musical performances” in film, you think about great musicals such as Singin’ in the Rain or The Sound of Music. However, for this list, we did not consider traditional musicals in the vein of those films, but rather we considered the musical components from narrative dramas that heavily influenced its characters in one way or another. And even more specifically, we did not look at the acting performance per se (although that’s a part of it), but rather the performance of the music itself and how that drives certain scenes or sequences. So, a lot of criteria this week but it made for an interesting look at music in film. That said, what would be your Top 3?

Top 3 Sponsor: First Time Watchers Podcast

– Music

Shallow – Lady Gaga, Bradley Cooper
Maybe It’s Time – Bradley Cooper
Figure It Out – Two Rocks Rye
The Return of the Eagle – Atli Örvarsson

Subscribe to our Podcasts RSS
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InSession Film Podcast – Episode 294

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Next week on the show:

Main Review: First Man
Top 3: TBD

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Featured: Truth and Authenticity in ‘A Star is Born’

Aaron Charles
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Featured: Truth and Authenticity in ‘A Star is Born’

We ask a lot from the movies we see. We want them to entertain us – to push aside the cares of the world for a couple hours. That, in itself, is a monumental ask when you really think about it. On top of that, we also ask movies to inform our lives in some way – to help us understand the world around us. That may be an even more monumental ask. How are we to expect movies, regardless of genre, to accomplish these incredible feats? By what is undoubtedly the greatest request we make upon movies.

We ask them to be truthful.

I was thinking about this after my wife and I watched the latest version of A Star is Born. Written by, directed by, and starring Bradley Cooper, this is a film that will force you to consider what it means for a movie to be truthful. And, in the spirit of truthfulness, I should amend my statement. The star of A Star is Born is without a doubt its leading lady – Lady Gaga. In her debut film role, she absolutely shines.

But if you’re looking for a full review of the film, I’d direct you to InSession Film contributor Rachel Wager-Smith who wrote up a wonderful piece on the film. If I were to write a review, I’d echo many of her sentiments, so I’ll simply save us all the time and direct you to her piece.

Instead, I’d like to focus on the acting performances in the film and, specifically, how they bring out a truthfulness that I am not used to seeing in such films as this. Full disclosure before we go any further: I have not seen any of the previous versions of A Star is Born. Even so, I must admit that I wondered why a film that has been made three times previously warrants another remake.

After seeing this film, I think I’ve found my answer – truth.

Fiction vs. “Real-Life”

Any time someone has a story to tell and they are able to stay true to that story, powerful moments can emerge. And this film is full of powerful moments. But what do we even mean when we say that someone has “stayed true” to their story?

A Star is Born certainly tells a fictional tale in that it is not a biopic and doesn’t pretend to tell a “real-life” story. But, for this discussion, I’d like to consider “real-life” tales for a moment. When we hear that a movie is based upon a true story, we still don’t expect the film to follow its story with perfect precision. At least we shouldn’t. Even documentaries are not the real thing. Any film is at least one step removed from real life. There’s always a layer of illusion over top.

On the flip side, when it comes to fictional stories, we still expect them to tell some kind of truth that will resonate in our real lives. They’re still one step removed from reality (some are farther removed than others), but that doesn’t mean that they are absolved of the expectation to tell the truth. Some of the greatest films ever made (Persona comes to mind most readily) have acknowledged and even played into this fact.

Even stories that take place in other galaxies can tell the truth. This basic fact of storytelling goes all the way back to Aristotle’s Poetics, where we learn that an impossible probability is better than an improbable possibility. Put another way, when the Millennium Falcon is pulled into the Death Star by a tractor beam, we accept it even though we know such a thing cannot be done in our world. Given what we know about the story, we take it to be probable even though we know it to be actually impossible. Such a story element, Aristotle says, is much preferable to the phenomenon in countless films where characters turn on the television or radio just in time to learn a major plot point. We know that is possible in our world. But it’s so improbable to the point of being ludicrous and, even worse, untruthful.

A Star is Born finds unique ways to unearth the truth in its story, even though we’ve seen this same story before in the previous remakes and even in other films. For that alone, it deserves all the praise it has received and then some.

A Star is Born and the Power of Truthfulness

It would have been easy for A Star is Born to fall into some timeworn clichés. The main character who struggles with alcoholism, the down-on-her-luck dreamer who finally reaches stardom, the lovers who are pulled in different directions, and the price of celebrity are all tropes that make their way into this storyline. In my mind, the film kept from falling prey to these clichés, because it never strayed from the heart of its story – the lives and loves behind the limelight.

More than any element, the film’s success in this regard is owed to its performers. We’ll start with Lady Gaga who finds the perfect notes as Ally. She knows when to be unsure of herself because Ally is an aspiring performer. At the same time, she knows that Ally is driven and fully believes in her own skill, so she finds subtle ways to show that, amid the initial fear, there is great self-assuredness that only needs to be unleashed.

Bradley Cooper also gives an incredibly-authentic performance, mainly for how he portrays a “star” collapsing in on himself. He doesn’t diverge into flailing antics for the drunk scenes. He plays it much more truthfully, showcasing a man who is driven by his demons. Yes, that’s a story we’ve seen before, but I’ve never seen it performed like Cooper does here.

When it comes to acting performances, truth can be a funny thing. While I’m acknowledging the authenticity of the performances here, I must also concede that not every truthful performance arrives at that end through being “authentic.” That may sound odd at first, but hear me out.

Take an actor like Al Pacino, for instance. He is one of the greatest actors to ever live. He has given performances like Cooper does here, in that they were authentic characters (think Sonny Wortzik in Dog Day Afternoon). But, later in his career, Pacino routinely has routinely taken on roles that called for a more musical performance (think of his roles in Glengarry Glen Ross – my personal favorite Pacino – or Scarface). Pacino still conveys truth in those roles even though some of his choices may not seem authentic on the surface. He’s loud and showy and…yet still truthful. It’s why he’s one of the greats.

I mention that because there are clearly many ways to arrive at truthfulness when it comes to films and acting performances. We should not grade everyone on whether or not they are fully authentic. Instead, we must grade them on whether or not they are truthful. I may be crazy, but I think there’s a difference.

One of my favorite aspects of A Star is Born was its use of eye-contact between its main characters. There are two moments when they first meet at a bar – one where Ally makes contact with Jackson (Cooper) and another where Cooper returns the favor. Then, the final scene brings what must be one of the most emotionally-searing instances of eye contact I’ve seen in a film. These moments keep the film from getting too far adrift in its story of celebrity and ground it in the true personal story at its heart.

We ask a lot of our movies, and rightfully so. They have incredible powers to move and affect audiences and even our culture at large. That power should not be taken lightly. The best films are ones that seek, not to manipulate that power, but to acknowledge it by their pursuit of truth. Whether that is in a familiar story or one that takes place in another world, the truth is still what matters.

A Star is Born is not a perfect film. Very few are. But it walks the line of authenticity and truth beautifully, and I’d encourage anyone to go experience it for themselves.

Movie Review: Lady Gaga is a star in ‘A Star is Born’

Rachel Wager-Smith
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Movie Review: Lady Gaga is a star in ‘A Star is Born’

Director: Bradley Cooper
Writers: Eric Roth (screenplay by), Bradley Cooper (screenplay by)
Stars: Lady Gaga, Bradley Cooper, Sam Elliott

Synopsis: A musician helps a young singer and actress find fame, even as age and alcoholism send his own career into a downward spiral.

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A Star is Born is the movie everyone is talking about, and everyone likely will be talking about it until at least next year’s awards season. It’s made Bradley Cooper a director. It’s made Lady Gaga a movie star. It’s a classic tale and is likely soon to be a classic movie. But is it actually a good movie? I have feelings.

Let’s start with the pros, because there are several. First and foremost (warning: obvious pun coming up), a star truly is born in Lady Gaga (sorry, I had to). She absolutely kills it in this role. We already knew she could sing, and she’s acted in both TV shows and movies before, but in A Star is Born, she really shows us what she’s made of and shifts her persona from pop star to movie star. Her performance is anything but shallow and the emotional depth she brings to the character of Ally carries this movie, 100%. She has some of the funniest and most charming line deliveries in the first act, and the performance deepens in surprising and profound ways throughout the film. Bradley Cooper’s performance is strong as well, but feels much more familiar and relatively unimpressive, plus I have a hard time believing him as a rock star. Gaga’s performance, on the other hand, feels fresh, raw, and believable. She brings a relatability and an intelligence to the character that makes the role far more interesting than the script really should allow and I think most people who see this movie will be incredibly surprised if this doesn’t make her an Academy Award nominee.

Other major pros with this movie come with the music, costumes, makeup, and hair (unsurprising, really, given the female lead). The soundtrack is a solid mix of country, rock, and pop and it steers fairly clear of Gaga’s usual style, focusing more on story and characters than Lady Gaga herself. There will most certainly be a best original song nom for Shallow at this year’s Oscars and I, for one, can’t wait to see the live performance. The costumes, makeup, and hair reflect the same blend of musical characteristics and feels unique and appropriate to this world and these characters. I also love the evolution of the character aesthetics seen throughout the movie and the fact that things never go full-blown Gaga in that department. There are elements of pop and celebrity without Ally simply being Lady Gaga.

Now for the cons. I hate the be the bearer of bad news, but the script for this movie is pretty bad. I haven’t seen the older versions of A Star is Born, but based on the amount of melodrama seeping through the frames, I would guess it borrows fairly heavily from those scripts without spending nearly enough time modernizing the story, developing the characters, or creating a plot that isn’t the most predictable movie since Titanic. There was also very little conflict throughout the film, although opportunities abounded, and it was never really clear why these two characters even wanted to spend time with each other, let alone how a romantic relationship could form. There is also a pretty major pace issue with this movie. Several scenes could have been cut entirely and most of the scenes could have been at least 25 percent shorter, in my opinion. Even a few of the musical numbers went on a little too long, which is something I never thought I’d say about a musical featuring Lady Gaga.

Another major con for me with this movie was Cooper’s directorial style. He seemed extremely preoccupied with making himself look like a rockstar and most of the scenes in which he sings are shot in handheld shaky cam extreme close ups with a million bright lights and, of course, a few obligatory dolly shot from behind with the crowd and lights in front. I understand trying to recreate the feeling of a rock concert, but it was too much, too often. I also think Cooper was likely trying to portray Jack’s life as chaotic through the camerawork, while Ally brought a stillness and a calm, which, again, would have been extremely effective in much smaller doses.

All in all, this is definitely a movie where you likely know what you’re going to get before you start watching the movie. Do you like melodramas? Do you like Bradley Cooper? Do you like Lady Gaga? Do you like movies about musicians? Do you like the older versions of this movie? Do you like the looks of the trailer? If you answered yes to several of these questions, you’ll like this movie. If you answered no to more than one or two, you should probably really stop and think if you want to sit through the hefty two hour and 15 minute runtime of this movie. As for me, the pros carried it to a passing grade and there are plenty of things I appreciated about this movie, but the cons kept it from being one I can say I truly enjoyed.

Overall Grade: B-

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Hear our podcast review on Episode 295, coming soon!

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Podcast: Lizzie / We the Animals – Extra Film

JD Duran
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Podcast: Lizzie / We the Animals – Extra Film

This week on the InSession Film Podcast: Extra Film segment, we discuss Craig Macneill’s latest film in Lizzie and Jeremiah Zagar’s first narrative feature in We the Animals!

For this specific episode, Ryan joined Brendan for the Lizzie review while JD hopped on the show to talk to Brendan about We the Animals. Since Brendan had been away for awhile, we decided to make him the workhorse this week. We had a lot of fun with these two reviews, and while they aren’t widely available, hopefully they’ll start to spread their wings more in the upcoming weeks.

On that note, have fun with this week’s Extra Film segment and let us know what you think in the comment section below. Thanks for listening!

– Movie Review: Lizzie (5:18)
Director: Craig Macneill
Writer: Bryce Kass
Stars: Kristen Stewart, Chloë Sevigny, Fiona Shaw

– Movie Review: We the Animals (27:46)
Director: Jeremiah Zagar
Writer: Daniel Kitrosser, Justin Torres (based on the novel by)
Stars: Sheila Vand, Raúl Castillo, Evan Rosado

– Music

Say the Words For Me – Jeff Russo
Good Graces – Nick Zammuto
The Return of the Eagle – Atli Örvarsson

We try to make this the best movie podcast we possibly can and we hope you enjoy them. Subscribe today on iTunes, Spotfiy or Stitcher, and please leave us a review on iTunes. You can also find us on Soundcloud, PlayerFM and TuneIn Radio as well. We really appreciate all your support of the InSession Film Podcast.

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Lizzie / We the Animals – Extra Film

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Featured: The Show Is Behind The Camera: Truffaut’s ‘Day For Night’

Brian Susbielles
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Featured: The Show Is Behind The Camera: Truffaut’s ‘Day For Night’

Francois Truffaut, trending from art house to mainstream, decided to turn the camera on himself in a composition of troubled actors, hidden loves, and technical misfires. The result is something that is very much like the title of the movie, in which day scenes are being shot at night. It is farcical and somewhat real, externally glorious and internally ugly, and it would be the ultimate movie about a movie in thanks to the genius of an ultimate cinephile. This is Day For Night and the world it presents is all neurotics and hard workers who present that scenes and sweat that goes into a basic scene for the fictitious Meet Pamela, a melodrama about a family in romantic peril – just like the cast and crew.

Love On The Go

First, there is Jean-Pierre Leaud as Alphonse, a heartthrob actor who struggles with handling love. During the film, Alphonse’s fiancée leaves him for the film’s stuntman. His neurotic ways have pushed his fiancee for another man and someone lower than him on the totem pole. An understandably heartbroken Alphonse wants to cure his pain by getting drunk and asking people in the hallway if they can give him money to get a prostitute. Instead, he has a one-night stand with Jacqueline Bisset, who plays Julie Baker, an actress being chased by a scandal with her new marriage. It results in a childish move by Alphonse and a scathing comment by the producer’s wife on why does filmmaking include everyone having affairs with each other and forcing emotions onto everyone else.

Emotions On The Fritz

With Julie Baker, her scandal involves a breakdown she has recovered from which has led to the marriage with the doctor who treated her. It takes one moment to shatter her recovery. Meanwhile, Séverine, a former diva actress, had a relationship with Alphonse, which then ended badly, and now the two are working together. It is less of love on-the-go and more of, “let’s get through with this.” In addition, she struggles to remember her lines and has a mini-breakdown on set, which is fixed by having her read the lines off-screen, similar to how Marylin Monroe had to do for Some Like It Hot. Something that kind of goes unnoticed is the respected (and only sane) Alexandre’s secret rendezvous with his young boyfriend, relaying the secrecy actors had to go through because of the risk of being exposed as gay. His sad ending is the reminder that stars are not prone to a sudden tragedy that befalls us every day.

Technical Difficulties

Truffaut pokes into the process of set-placed action with take after take on an open set with extras walking around choreographed with the camera. As the director Ferrand, Truffaut works with his script editor in making the necessary changes, speaks with Georges Delerue who plays the score for him over a growing pile of film literature and improvising to get his melancholy actors in tune. One of the funnier scenes is when he tries to have a cat on cue drink a bowl of milk. It won’t and they try to force the cat to take it, but cannot. Another scene involves Séverine, where she learns her lines perfectly but continues to open the wrong door into a closet, not the hallway. The doors look the same and they are right next to each other. But lastly, it brings up an unexpected death of the one person who brought no baggage to the screen, which then alters the movie dramatically. It is very eerie to how Heath Ledger’s death altered The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus and its story.

Death Of A Relationship

A coda to this movie is the complete severance of ties between Truffaut and his fellow New Wave companion, Jean-Luc Godard. Within the massive success of Day For Night, one critic of the film was Godard himself, who walked out late in the film and wrote a scathing letter to Truffaut. He called the film, “a lie,” and Truffaut responded in kind in calling Godard a hypocrite and, essentially, “a piece of shit.” The split is from the fact that Godard, as a political radical, had kept the original techniques for his politically charged works while Truffaut moved on to modern stories that made him look like a sellout to Godard’s eyes. At the time, Truffaut was a major success critically and financially that Godard could never get from when he started because of his turn to make movies about realism that was very limited in appeal. It was a split that, sadly, should have been no surprise, but the details of their nasty divorce was a mere secret until Truffaut died. They never spoke to each other again, even though Godard tried to repair the relationship before Truffaut’s death. (Check out the doc Two In The Wave which examines their friendship until that bitter end.)

Day For Night won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film and was also nominated for Best Original Screenplay, Director, and Supporting Actress for Valentina Cortese as the diva Severine. Godard called the film a lie; if it is, then it is a great lie and a fantasy worth going into, even in those tedious and exhausting episodes of prima donnas. If it is true, then Truffaut revealed a massive portrait of the perils of making a movie with so many crazy characters. It is an international story where everything is interwoven and scandals behind-the-scenes are often too common. From film history and from his own past, Truffaut constructs a funny, bonkers, fluid set of tales all mixed up on a movie set, the ultimate home for Truffaut. Sometimes, the best show is how the movie is made and not what is on the fine celluloid, cut and print.

Follow me on Twitter:@BrianSusbielles

Movie Review: ‘Hold the Dark’ is a grueling, appealing act

Nguyen Le
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Movie Review: ‘Hold the Dark’ is a grueling, appealing act

Director: Jeremy Saulnier
Writers: Macon Blair (screenplay by), William Giraldi (based on the book by)
Stars: Jeffrey Wright, Alexander Skarsgård, James Badge Dale, Riley Keough

Synopsis: After the deaths of three children suspected to be killed by wolves, writer Russell Core is hired by the parents of a missing six-year-old boy to track down and locate their son in the Alaskan wilderness.

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Upon reading the title, in an instant you can see yourself holding a broom while something rolls in. Something unpleasant. Maybe it’s nothing beyond the shadows that cast when the sun sets, but still. If helplessness — overwhelming helplessness — is the spice author William Giraldi wants to give the most piquancy to while writing Hold the Dark, he’d be glad in knowing that is also the most pronounced element in the first-A24-then-Netflix screen adaptation. So much so, in fact, that any attempt to connect with the footage will result in two-and-a-half-degree frostbite. Oof. But in making it difficult for viewers to embrace the frame do Jeremy Saulnier and company find a way to paint “dark” rightly, and from there does one find a thriller imbued with challenging goodness.

That, on top of finishing up another set of Three Colors — if anyone, especially Saulnier, is wondering.

In an Alaskan — true Alaskan — town that bears the name of a chthonic canine-esque spirit (Keelut), a death has happened. Or should it be “another”? As housewife Medora Slone (Riley Keough, convincingly tormented) has written to wolf expert Russell Core (Jeffrey Wright, minimalist but always compelling, thanks to those weathered eyes), her son is the third child to have fallen prey to the wolves. She also implores him to exact reciprocal revenge onto the canis lupus responsible for the tragedy, a task that will see its progression thwarted and greater evils unleashed when Medora’s husband, Vernon (Alexander Skarsgård, at this point a master of the icy stare), returns from the sun-scorched fronts of Fallujah.

People and wildlife have close-to-little distinction in Hold the Dark, and writer Macon Blair (Saulnier’s friend who also has a role here) makes it his mission to keep that idea within view. Always. What begins as invasions of the primitive world will, minute by minute, grow into shadowings of the civilized’s. Beasts in the wind are said to circle humans often. Humans will don bestial masks, sometimes literally, to fulfill needs that may blister tongues if uttered. “Minute by minute” is the key phrase here, which while letting every ounce of savagery into the system — a potently and casually directed shootout at the halfway mark will have your blood curdle even more than whatever scene that does so in both Blue Ruin and Green Room — it also means the mystery will unfold in a glacial fashion. The wintry landscape will appreciate the added “oomph” in its portrayal; can’t say the same for those who by now are madly well-trained to the harsh sights and quavering talks of arctic living.

That said, Hold the Dark has devices that make the brooding chill endlessly enticing. There are Magnus Nordenhof Jønck’s photography that assumes the eyes of the hunter or the hunted (and for either case never shies away from uber-realistic gory results); Ryan Warren Smith’s isolation-marked production design and Brooke & Will Blair’s cold strings that may invoke chants not of this plane. And even though all are a testament to Saulnier’s notable technical proficiency and — if we take into account the production’s scale — readiness to adapt, again they can’t let the dossier of the investigation enters our hands. Still, benching us is the riskiest-but-most-undiluted way to have us witness, or be on a collision course with, the trappings of this world. All deadly, if not to our body then to what is within. As Vernon’s friend Cheeon (Julian Black Antelope, intense) reminds local cop Donald Marium (James Badge Dale, ever alert) in an exchange, there’s no way to stop “the call,” or the howl of death.

Let go of the broom now.

Overall Grade: B

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Hear our podcast review:

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Poll: What is the best remake that’s better than the original?

JD Duran
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0
Poll: What is the best remake that’s better than the original?

It’s finally here! We’ve all seen the trailer for A Star is Born about 200 times by now, and it’s finally hitting theaters this weekend. Bradley Cooper’s directorial debut will be a major awards player and it should make for some interesting conversation on Episode 294 this weekend. For now though, we want to know which remake stands out to you as the very best. Not all remakes are great, but several have become regarded as not just better films than their predecessors, but some of the best films of all-time.

So with that said, what is the best remake that is considered (by many) to be better than the original? Vote now!


List: Top 3 Netflix Films

JD Duran
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List: Top 3 Netflix Films

This week on Episode 293 of the InSession Film Podcast, inspired by Hold the Dark, we thought it would be fun to discuss the best films on Netflix currently. The topic of Netflix “original” content has been a polarized subject over the last few years as their films have varied greatly in quality. Some are very good, others have been..well let’s just say less than stellar. But given their upcoming schedule, now is the time to discuss the best films from what could be considered “Phase 1” of Netflix original films. If their fall slate, such as Roma, 22 July and The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, is what we hope it will be, 2018 could be a major turning point for Netflix in the film community. For now though, we talk about the best films they have to this point, and we think you’ll enjoy what cultivated for our lists. That said, here are our lists:

(Note: Please keep in mind that we each had different criteria for our selections)

JD:

1) Beasts of No Nation
2) 13th
3) The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected)

Ryan:

1) Mudbound
2) 13th
3) Okja

Walter:

1) The Ritual
2) Amanda Knox
3) Beasts of No Nation

Honorable Mentions (Combined)

First They Killed My Father, Hush, Win It All, The Little Prince, Tramps, First Match, Icarus, Virunga, What Happened, Miss Simone, The Fundamentals of Caring, Set it Up, To all the Boys I’ve Loved Before, On Body and Soul, I Don’t Feel At Home in this World Anymore, Hold the Dark

Hopefully you guys enjoyed our lists and if you agree or disagree with us, let us know in the comment section below. As noted above, the quality of Netflix content has been all over the place, so maybe your list looks differently than ours. That being said, what would be your Top 3? Leave a comment in the comment section or email us at [email protected].

For the entire podcast, click here or listen below.

For more lists done by the InSession Film crew and other guests, be sure see our Top 3 Movie Lists page.

Movie Review: ‘Lizzie’ is as captivating as it is horrifying

Nyle Coleman
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Movie Review: ‘Lizzie’ is as captivating as it is horrifying

Director: Craig William Macneill
Writers: Bryce Kass
Stars: Kristen Stewart, Chloë Sevigny, Fiona Shaw

Synopsis: A psychological thriller based on the infamous 1892 murders of the Borden family.

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Whether or not you are familiar with the story of Lizzie Borden and the tragic double murder of her parents you should still enjoy Lizzie. Written by Bryce Kass and marvelously directed by Craig William Macneill the film is a fascinating retelling that takes the events and circumstances surrounding the deaths of Andrew and Abby Borden, played here by Jamey Sheridan and Fiona Shaw respectively, and paints a bold picture of what led to their murders. Lizzie Borden is brought to life on-screen by an absolutely phenomenal performance from Chloë Sevigny while Kristen Stewart plays Bridget Sullivan, the Borden’s Irish maid and a character involved in the true story whom I was unaware of prior to the film. Both Sevigny and Stewart give stellar performances and I must admit I have not seen many of Sevigny’s films but if Lizzie is any indication of her talent I have to wonder why she hasn’t been cast in more prominent roles.

Although the story of Lizzie Borden and the murder of her parents has been simplified through the popular children’s rhyme as well as folk tales, like any other true crime story the actual truth behind the event can be complex. Kass and Macneill take the small details and expand on them to give a very effective and compelling version. And although this take on the crime is not necessarily new it is still powerful and at the same time quite convincing. I would not be surprised if this becomes the new accepted version of the what occurred. The timing of this new version is also very relevant considering the current positive movement in women’s empowerment. In the film, there is an obvious discord between Lizzie and Andrew and every scene they are in together is charged with tension. Much of this is due to Lizzie’s tendency to question her father’s actions and to do so with no hesitance or apprehension which was likely not common during the time. Sevigny captures Lizzie’s confidence with such zeal, it is powerful to see on-screen.

Macneill’s previous work is unfamiliar to me but I was mesmerized by his style in Lizzie. The film has this beautiful texture and tone which was perfect for a period piece. The pacing fits well for this particular story and allows for both a build up of suspense and tension while at the same time establishing for the audience the deeper relationships between everyone in the household, which is important to make the final act so believable. Also, Macneill’s use of angles and lighting add emotion for certain scenes and are not too jarring as I find some filmmakers can overdo it with creative camera work. Macneill’s style in conjunction with the wondrous performances makes Lizzie a great theater experience, definitely a movie to see on a larger screen and without the at-home distractions.

While at the same time allowing the story to unfold so elegantly the film is also brutal when it comes to the murders. Not just visually, and be warned Macneill had no qualms about capturing the barbaric nature of Andrew and Abby’s deaths, but also physiologically. Much of the violence is conveyed through motion and sound but it is effective after all these were murder committed with an axe. Still, though Macneill handles it with a certain sophistication and style, there is blood and plenty of it but he somehow blends the violence of the act into a kind of visual art.

Searching for any flaws in Lizzie would be difficult but if I had to point my finger at one it would be the way the story unfolds chronologically. Macneill summons his inner Nolan by telling the story with numerous flashbacks. The audience is forced to watch a few scenes two or three times over as we move through the stories timeline and each time we are given small bits and pieces of what actually occurred the day in question. This doesn’t damage the experience for me, but it did get tiring as I was so enthralled by the story I just wanted to finally get to the reveal.

This new telling of the Borden tragedy is outstanding for so many reasons, bravo to Macneill and Kass for such a well told and fascinating story. Truly though what makes the film is the performance from Sevigny and Stewart, these two amazing actors are why Lizzie will keep your full attention. Sevigny is in top form and her performance is nothing short of amazing and deserving of a nod. Stewart has really amazed me in the last few films I’ve seen her in, so much so I find myself excited when I hear her name attached to a project, and in Lizzie she continues to impress. Although Sevigny steals the show Stewart definitely holds her own and hopefully this performance will finally quiet her persistent naysayers. Lizzie is such a great piece of filmmaking and I fully intend to do a second viewing. The story is so captivating I had to force myself to take mental notes and take a step back at times to look at the film with a critical eye. Next time I want to be able to simply sit back and just enjoy the show.

Overall Grade: B+

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Podcast: Hold the Dark / Top 3 Netflix Films – Episode 293

JD Duran
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Podcast: Hold the Dark / Top 3 Netflix Films – Episode 293

This week’s episode is brought to you by Casper. Get $50 off any mattress purchase today!

This week on the InSession Film Podcast, Ryan McQuade fills in for Brendan and we are joined by Walter Vinci from First Time Watchers to discuss Jeremy Saulnier’s Hold the Dark. We also discuss our Top 3 Netflix films and JD gives us his thoughts on Mandy after missing last week’s show.

Big thanks to Ryan for stepping up this week, he was absolutely wonderful and did a great job as co-host. An even bigger thank you to Walter for showing us grace, as it took way to long to finally get him on the show. As you may know, we love the guys over at FTW, but sadly we had never featured Wally on the show. So we were glad to remedy that issue and he did not disappoint. We had a lot of fun talking about Hold the Dark and Netflix, and we hope you enjoy listening to it.

On that note, check out this week’s show and let us know what you think in the comment section. Thanks for listening and for supporting the InSession Film Podcast!

– Movie Review: Hold the Dark (4:31)
Director: Jeremy Saulnier
Writer: Macon Blair
Stars: Jeffrey Wright, Alexander Skarsgård, James Badge Dale, Riley Keough

– Notes / JD Reviews Mandy (52:08)

As mentioned above, JD was absent from his co-hosting duties last week, but he did manage to see Mandy and wanted to give us his thoughts on this week’s show.

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RELATED: Listen to Episode 289 of the InSession Film Podcast where we discussed 2001: A Space Odyssey!

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– Top 3 Netflix Films (1:06:42)
The topic of Netflix “original” content has been a polarized subject over the last few years as their films have varied greatly in quality. Some are very good, others have been..well let’s just say less than stellar. But given their upcoming schedule, now is the time to discuss the best films from what could be considered “Phase 1” of Netflix original films. If their fall slate, such as Roma, 22 July and The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, is what we hope it will be, 2018 could be a major turning point for Netflix in the film community. For now though, we talk about the best films they have to this point, and we think you’ll enjoy what cultivated for our lists. That said, what would be your Top 3?

Top 3 Sponsor: First Time Watchers Podcast

– Music

Hold the Dark – Brook Blair, Will Blair
Against the Odds – The Newton Brothers
Mighty River – Mary J. Blige
The Return of the Eagle – Atli Örvarsson

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InSession Film Podcast – Episode 2923

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Next week on the show:

Main Review: A Star is Born
Top 3: Music Performances in Film

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Movie Review: Glenn Close’s Radiance Eclipsed in ‘The Wife’

JD Duran
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Movie Review: Glenn Close’s Radiance Eclipsed in ‘The Wife’

Director: Björn Runge
Writers: Jane Anderson (screenplay by), Meg Wolitzer (based on the novel “The Wife” by)
Stars: Christian Slater, Jonathan Pryce, Glenn Close

Synopsis: A wife questions her life choices as she travels to Stockholm with her husband, where he is slated to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature.

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Björn Runge’s film The Wife superficially appears to be a taut drama skillfully acted by adept performers. However, once one digs a little deeper, this illusion quickly crumbles. The Wife, based on the novel by Meg Wolitzer centers on Joan Castleman (Glenn Close) as she travels to Stockholm with her husband, Joseph Castleman (Jonathan Pryce). In Sweden, Joseph is to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for his brilliant body of work. Thrust into a new environment, the Castlemans begin to struggle in the unwavering spotlight. As the tension between the couple tightens, cracks begin to appear in their outwardly perfect lifestyle. Compiling the strained situation are a bothersome biographer (Christian Slater) and a whiny adult son (Max Irons) who continually add fuel to the fire by interjecting their loathsome agendas into the already loathsome circumstances.

Most importantly, the acting in this film is beyond reproach. Glenn Close shines as Joan, who struggles with her life as Joseph’s wife. Her performance reflects the wonder that is her ability and she incredibly holds this film up by herself in ways that are rare in contemporary film. Jonathan Pryce brims with swagger as the patriarchal Castleman, never losing a moment to come out of Ms. Close’s shadow and steal a scene or two. Yet with all this talent, these brilliant actors are forced to swim in a script that continually attempts to drown them. At every turn they act their way into situations and moments that never manufacture tension or interest. Their passion for their craft, especially that of Glenn Close, does shine through the murk of this film. However, that adeptness is not enough to save this dismal picture.

Acting aside, The Wife never hides its intentions from the audience. It completely forgets to keep its big twist clandestine. In fact, when the twist finally rears its ugly head, one becomes painfully aware that it arrives about 60 minutes too late. It is not just the twist that is hidden in plain sight; the scenes, the character interactions, and the dialogue flow with a predictability that would make any other film blush with supreme embarrassment. However, this film bounds on, seemingly ignorant of the contempt it is pushing on its viewers. Watching The Wife, one witnesses a story that continually insults the audience’s intelligence, while at the same time holding its plot up on a pedestal of brilliance. There is nothing worse than a film that takes itself so seriously, it is unaware of the fact that it is laughably failing at every frame. In no way does The Wife create tension that is not foreseen. In no way does The Wife allow the viewer to think for themselves. In no way does the The Wife take a step back and breathe on its own accord. The entire film is rigid and predictable, offering very little real drama. It’s as if the audience is being sold a Tiffany necklace, but instead are given a string of paperclips with a Tiffany price tag.

Regardless of whether you are looking for drama mixed with superb acting, The Wife is simply not the film to scratch that itch. It is a miscalculating, dreadful, and painfully boring way to spend one hundred minutes. For every ounce of flawless Glenn Close, there are pounds upon pounds of bad script. Ms. Close constantly struggles with an unwieldy story that relentlessly backs her into a corner. This film is perfect for a viewer that has never seen a real dramatic film. The Wife is a sheep in wolf’s clothing. It lacks both bark and bite.

Overall Grade: C-

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Podcast: Best Actor / Actress / Supporting Actor / Supporting Actress – Chasing the Gold Ep. 2

JD Duran
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Podcast: Best Actor / Actress / Supporting Actor / Supporting Actress – Chasing the Gold Ep. 2

On Episode 2 of Chasing the Gold, Ryan is joined by Erik Anderson from Awards Watch and Michael Schwartz from Next Best Picture to talk about the 2019 Lead and Supporting Actor and Actress Oscar race and they reveal their Top 5 predictions as it stands right now for the Acting Awards at next year’s Oscars.

This episode did run a little on the long side, but when the discussion is this good, and you have amazing guests, it’s was hard to keep the run time down. There’s so much to talk about, and big thanks to Erik and Michael for joining us, they were really great and it lead to such great discussion.

On that note, have fun with this week’s Chasing the Gold and let us know what you think in the comment section below. Thanks for listening!

– Acting Race Discussion (3:53)

– Acting Race Predictions (1:01:47)

– Music

Oscars Theme – Richard A Whiting & Johnny Mercer
Shallow – Bradley Cooper, Lady Gaga
The Return of the Eagle – Atli Örvarsson

We try to make this the best movie podcast we possibly can and we hope you enjoy them. Subscribe today on iTunes, Spotfiy or Stitcher, and please leave us a review on iTunes. You can also find us on Soundcloud, PlayerFM and TuneIn Radio as well. We really appreciate all your support of the InSession Film Podcast.

Subscribe to our Podcasts RSS
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Listen on Spotify
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2019 Acting Races – Chasing the Gold

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Podcast: Assassination Nation / Blaze – Extra Film

Brendan Cassidy
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Podcast: Assassination Nation / Blaze – Extra Film

This week on the InSession Film Podcast: Extra Film segment, we discuss Sam Levinson’s social crime comedy Assassination Nation, as well as DIRECTOR Ethan Hawke’s music biopic on country legend Blaze Foley in Blaze.

JD and Ryan cover this week’s episode, and are also joined by frequent InSession Film writer Kate Boyle for their discussion of Assassination Nation; that discussion may have gone a bit long (especially with having three voices present), but it felt necessary given the social timeliness of Sam Levinson’s film. We also get to praise Ethan Hawke as not just an actor but also as a director for his film Blaze, however it’s Ben Dickey’s performance that stole JD’s and Ryan’s hearts in the end.

On that note, have fun with this week’s Extra Film segment and let us know what you think in the comment section below. Thanks for listening!

– Movie Review: Assassination Nation (4:32)
Director: Sam Levinson
Writer: Sam Levinson
Stars: Odessa Young, Hari Nef, Suki Waterhouse, Abra, Colman Domingo

– Movie Review: Blaze (1:02:20)
Director: Ethan Hawke
Writer: Ethan Hawke, Sybil Rosen
Stars: Ben Dickey, Alia Shawkat, Josh Hamilton

– Music

Black Wave – K.Flay
Clay Pigeons – Blaze Foley, Ben Dickey
The Return of the Eagle – Atli Örvarsson

We try to make this the best movie podcast we possibly can and we hope you enjoy them. Subscribe today on iTunes, Spotfiy or Stitcher, and please leave us a review on iTunes. You can also find us on Soundcloud, PlayerFM and TuneIn Radio as well. We really appreciate all your support of the InSession Film Podcast.

Subscribe to our Podcasts RSS
Subscribe to our Podcasts on iTunes
Listen on Spotify
Listen on Stitcher
Assassination Nation / Blaze – Extra Film

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To hear this Extra Film episode and everything else we do, download our apps on the Amazon Market for Android and the Podcast Box app on IOS devices. The mobile app covers all of our main shows, bonus podcast’s and everything else relating to the InSession Film Podcast. Thanks for your wonderful support and listening to our show. It means the world to us!

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Help Support The InSession Film Podcast

If you want to help support us, we would greatly appreciate it! For more info, CLICK HERE.

Movie Review: ‘Life Itself” is the most insulting, manipulating film of the year

Ryan McQuade
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Movie Review: ‘Life Itself” is the most insulting, manipulating film of the year

Director: Dan Fogelman
Writers: Dan Fogelman
Stars: Oscar Isaac, Olivia Wilde, Annette Bening

Synopsis: As a young New York couple goes from college romance to marriage and the birth of their first child, the unexpected twists of their journey create reverberations that echo over continents and through lifetimes.

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Let me start by saying, before I get into reasons why I didn’t like this movie, know that I had hopes a couple of months ago about this film. When I saw the trailer, I thought it looked good and was interested in giving this movie a shot, even though the idea of taking a giant cast of characters and have them all connected by circumstances so dumb that you have to shut your brain off to even imagine it working. Then the reviews started to come out of Toronto and various critics I admire, thus leading me to worry that this film will not be good. Those reviews amounted to it being ranked as one of the worst films of the year. And after seeing Dan Fogelman’s Life Itself, and some days to think on it, I must agree with my peers and say that not only is Life Itself the worst movie of the year so far, but dare I say the most offensive film put to screen in recent memory.

Life Itself mostly follows two shallow, meaningless stories about two families, one in New York City and the other in Spain. The Dempsey family composed of Oscar Isaac, Oliva Wilde, Mandy Patinkin, Jean Smart, and later in the film, Olivia Cooke, are the unluckiest people on the planet and yet there is nothing that is really compelling about them. Isaac and Wilde meet in college and most of their story follows their dating life, their marriage, an event that changes everyone’s life, and then towards the tail end of their story, follows Cooke’s story, who plays their daughter. Everything in this section is an eye rolling, boring exercise in what to do when writing a screenplay. From Isaac’s depressing, creepy performance as Will, to Olivia Wilde’s character being nothing but a tool for Isaac’s character to exist, to the awful stuff about Wilde’s college thesis paper, which is a think piece for another day that I will not write make you read, to finally Cooke’s sluggish performance as the daughter that lost everything that no one feels sorry for. The only saving grace in this section is Patinkin and Annette Bening as Will’s psychiatrist but that’s not saying much because he is barely in this film, kind of like my interest in this film at this point of the movie.

The second part of this film follows family and their boss in Spain, played by Sergio Peris-Mencheta, Laia Costa, Alex Monner and Antonio Banderas. This section feels like a totally different movie, with some actual interest but confusion as to why it was in the film at all. It’s a basic story of Mencheta working for Banderas, moving his family in but not wanting to do anything but do his work for Banderas due to the nature of how Banderas got his money or something like that. But when a tragic event happens to Mencheta and his family, and Banderas comes to help, the film gives off so many weird tones that you don’t know what the hell it is trying to say about this situation. Costa’s performance is mostly good, but she is given the same treatment as Wilde’s character, in that their performances are only there to serve the men they are acting opposite in the scenes with. Banderas is really good here but it’s mostly Banderas being himself, so it’s not a far stretch of a performance. The other child performance from Alex Monner is okay, but he is not given much to do, again folks, this script sucks.

But even though the second part is better than the first, the thing that makes it terrible to is that all the big twists and turns in this story are reliant upon the abysmal first act, that you wonder what the point of the film is. By the end of the second section, you feel so cheap and dirty because you have been manipulated into this other story but can’t forget that this film is one of those movies that has to connect everything, so it ruins the best parts of it. Look I’m sure Dan Fogelman really poured his heart in soul into this project, and tried to turn lemon into whatever the hell this movie was supposed to be, but all that I felt by the end of this was that feeling of never wanting to see another thing written by him. Someone who can write terrible dialogue for Samuel L. Jackson (who is in one of the most baffling, offensive openings I’ve ever seen to a movie), make me feel like Pulp Fiction might be over rated, call a dog the worst name in cinema history, and ruin Bob Dylan, makes me question why NBC is giving him a job, and why he was ever given a shot to make this massive eye roll of a movie.

Overall Grade: F

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