Director: Kathryn Bigelow
Writers: Mark Boal
Stars: John Boyega, Anthony Mackie, Algee Smith, Will Poulter

Synopsis: Amidst the chaos of the Detroit Rebellion, with the city under curfew and as the Michigan National Guard patrolled the streets, three young African American men were murdered at the Algiers Motel.

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Detroit is a bleak, difficult film that finds its messaging a bit scrambled. From its docu-drama visual style, to its troubling torture scenes, Detroit attempts to fall under the historical epic category but instead finds itself in the “poorly made and disrespectful” category. The film does no justice for the historical events it is based off of, in fact it actually treats the events with little to no emotion. To some, Detroit may be an important film but since it is overflowing with violence, disrespect and false emotion that importance will be lost among many viewers.

Detroit begins with the riots that occurred in mo-town during the 1960’s. Jumping back and fourth between when the riots began and a rather specific event within the timeline of said riots. After highlighting the start of the events the film jumps into the incident at the Algiers Motel, where a group of police officers harass a group of African Amercian teenagers. The film has no real message whatsoever, there is no real beginning middle and end, it is one of the messiest films within recent memory.

Not only is there little to no story but the film just shows blatant disrespect toward the actual events. The movie is lit incredibly dark and sickly, the camera shots are shaky and uncoordinated and the film is edited almost like a horror movie. Instead of trying to prove a point like most historical films, Detroit just glorifies one horrible event after another. Instead of treating these terrible moments of torture and violence with grace and respect, the movie glorifies them. The one thing that this movie forgets to do is show us that the violence is wrong. Obviously, we’re humans we understand that the events that occur in the movie are immoral. But in film when exposed to moments of darkness and horror there should be some sort of saving grace. Detroit completely shies away from this. Instead of attempting to cheer up its audience it brings them even lower the longer the film drags on.

It gets to a point where the film almost has no redeemable qualities. The performances are nuanced and bring a certain energy to the film but this only occurs in rare spots during the film. The film is even crafted in an almost amateur matter which is shocking considering Kathryn Bigelow is in the directors chair. Bigelow has crafted some of the most exciting political films in recent memory and her visual style is typically focused and subtle. However in Detroit she strays from this and makes something much more amateur. It is almost disappointing to see something so flawed from such a talented director.

Detroit is an ill managed, chaotic film that cannot seem to make up its mind. Instead of focusing on a specific subject to discuss the film jumps around and around. Proving to be more disrespectful than an actual love letter to the historical events it is based off of, the film lacks in almost every aspect. There some small moments where the performances are done well but those moments are few and far between. The filmmaking craft is lackluster and Kathryn Bigelow has no made her first down right bad film. Detroit gives the illusion of importance but actually proves to be more frightening and disrespectful.

Overall Grade: D

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Hear our podcast review on Episode 233:

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Director: David F. Sandberg
Writers: Gary Dauberman
Stars: Stephanie Sigman, Miranda Otto, Lulu Wilson

Synopsis: Several years after the tragic death of their little girl, a dollmaker and his wife welcome a nun and several girls from a shuttered orphanage into their home, soon becoming the target of the dollmaker’s possessed creation, Annabelle.

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Let’s not hover around the haunt: Annabelle’s first solo appearance is detritus. Of its 99 minutes, 6 are somewhat watchable, but bear in mind that they don’t arrive in consecutive order. Rather than making the shadows worrisome and unclenched an exquisite feeling, Annabelle motivates the body to do activities it tends to delay – make the next meal, check off those unread emails, finish assignments and so on – to reclaim your time.

Startlingly, nothing of the sort happens with Creation.

The film focuses on a group of orphan girls being relocated to a settlement distant from civilization, a move that recalls the opening of The Devil’s Backbone and Pan’s Labyrinth. This new place, a capacious abode of toymaker Samuel Mullins (Anthony LaPaglia) and his wife Esther (Miranda Otto), doesn’t take long to make a positive impression, particularly to Sister Charlotte (Stephanie Sigman) who oversees the girls and to polio-stricken Janice (Talitha Bateman) who is pleased with the stair lift that can safely move her between floors. With these many doors and crannies, Janice and BFF Linda (Lulu Wilson) promptly let the curious bug take over, entering the not-to-be-entered adjacent room once inhabited by the Mullins’ daughter, Annabelle aka “Bee” (Samara Lee – what a name!), who 12 years ago died in a car accident. Moving on seems optional for Bee when she is permitted to move into the titular creepy, porcelain and vacant-eyed doll. So was that even Bee?

Right from the impressively staged shocker of a prologue, Creation welds merit to two things: that the film will finally serve horror and thoughtfulness will be behind every frame. Director David F. Sandberg’s job here is easy – clear the ankle-high bar that Annabelle has set – yet we should be glad that he is on set with the over-achiever mentality. Similar to the Ouija series with Origin of Evil, the preceding installment’s shameless cash-in nature is replaced with a director who comprehends the genre. As doctors everywhere would claim, a break before giving the plaything another go can improve the quality of the experience, having found the time to reflect on mistakes and successes (mostly the former in Annabelle‘s case). Alternatively, just add Wilson to the cast as director Mike Flanagan has done, the 11-year-old starlet whose possessed – pun extremely intended – performance in Origin of Evil was an absolute highlight.

The knack to convincingly portray terror breaches cinematic universes in a different actress, too, as Bateman is the real-life sister of Lights Out’s child actor. While Janice’s physical drawback (Janice has a crutch) can be interpreted as a genre gimmick, Bateman’s sensitivity convincingly reframes it into another layer of frailty for her character, who at one point is dropped from considerable height after failing to escape the demon. Even when Janice no longer has a choice to hobble away from the fear (and becomes the source of it instead), Bateman still bewitches when she monstrously lashes out at the rest of the household.

Save for replications of The Conjuring’s possession scene and Lights Out’s violent pull into darkness, Sandberg packs Creation with jolts that petrify mainly – and, at this point in the genre, nearing novelty – through construction. This is Sandberg’s greatest strength, and those who have dared watch his ponysmasher shorts can agree, one that never fails to brew the sincerest form of dread. He understands that the violin’s unholy plucks won’t twist eardrums as much as the increasingly rapid footsteps barreling toward the character. Why settle upon the screeching entity when heightening the panic-o-meter better is a mute, walking white sheet? And when need be, switch things up – have light bulbs loosen themselves, or reveal evil being there with just a glowing pair of eyes in the darkness. To guarantee the tastiness of Creation’s bag of freaky tricks, on board with Sandberg are key players who have contributed plenty to today’s horror landscape, including Insidious’ series production designer Jennifer Spence and director Alexander Aja’s regular d.o.p. Maxime Alexandre.

Such flourishes can be seen as Sandberg filling in for the lackluster-at-worst and detached-at-best efforts from writer Gary Dauberman, a holdover from Annabelle. There is no going around the characters’ thinness and the scare-to-scare plotting as a result, but luckily passion fuels the performers’ delivery and recognition of the ingredients behind a veritable scare – simplicity and obscurity – are there in the director. Had these two are absent (again), Creation would have really dented the soundness of this “The Conjuring Universe”: profitable, but on unworthy substance.

Yet, in the same breath that Creation is not a time-waster, its major returns this time will be justified. In theory, Sandberg and company needn’t care for anything else besides their own film, but their efforts have made Annabelle an essential watch. At least up until John R. Leonetti’s footage meets the pre-sequel.

Overall Grade: B+

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Director: David Lowery
Writers: David Lowery
Stars: Casey Affleck and Rooney Mara

Synopsis: In this singular exploration of legacy, love, loss, and the enormity of existence, a recently deceased, white-sheeted ghost returns to his suburban home to try to reconnect with his bereft wife.

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It is believed by some (perhaps many) that there is a life and an existence beyond the physical; what’s unknown is what sense of humanity (if any) crosses over with us. Are our experiences and emotions still similarly felt? Are they continually shared alongside other beings? Or is it an absence of feeling? Perhaps this inhuman experience is still a human one after all, and it is that exploration in humanity that permeates through David Lowery’s (Pete’s Dragon and Ain’t Them Bodies Saints) A Ghost Story, and out-of-body fable and meditation on the passage of time, closure, grief, and commemoration.

Sounds familiar to you? Perhaps this has become the formula for many “ghost films” these days, but Lowery flips the traditional ghost story notions on its head, reversing the polarity of their typically hokey messages that the memory and legacy of those who have passed on will live forever. Not only have these notions of memorial immortality become tiresome, but I question the validity in it. Does it really last, or is our legacy as mortal as our human selves? A Ghost Story states that perhaps it’s not just our ability to endure and preserve our legacy, but knowing that memories eventually die is maybe the closure we need to hear. It is also downright beautiful.

“Beautiful” may leave you in a head-scratch, especially if you’re familiar with the plot of A Ghost Story. Casey Affleck and Rooney Mara portray a loving couple, living together in what appears to be rural Texas. Affleck dies in a tragic accident, but chooses to remain a watchful eye as an out-of-body entity, complete with a child-like bedsheet and scissor-cut holes for eyes (surprisingly, there’s actually a narrative and medical reasoning for this). It’s a recognizably silly concept, something David Lowery himself is arguably aware of too, and yet the film achieves a striking balance in relishing in its weirdness while also transcending it. I already mentioned how Lowery inverts our preconceived notions of traditional ghost stories, and he continuously does that by turning A Ghost Story into more than just a meditation, but also an observation.

Affleck remains as a watchful eye on his lost love that continues for decades, experiencing time’s ultimate cruelty, observing without the ability to act (well, despite a few angry outbursts involving some kitchenware). As the audience, Lowery forces us to do the same thing; we connect with our central ghost as a mortal being (I swear I felt him emoting through those hole-cut eyes) and observe with him. We look for things hidden that may provide new meaning. We feel the weight of time through Affleck’s conversation with another ghost also awaiting closure; the use of subtitles could’ve backfired horribly, but instead maintains the film’s calmness. And that’s the strength in how A Ghost Story continuously transcends, in its favoring of patience and tranquility above all else (through its use of various long takes), and appropriately so, when time itself is arguably your main antagonist.

And for its sheer minimalistic approach, the film is a technical marvel in its own way. Andrew Droz Palermo’s cinematography and boxed-in aspect ratio creates an aura of imprisonment, and is still strikingly gorgeous in its emptiness. Daniel Hart’s score is pivotal in backing the film’s realism, and is arguably one of the best scores of the entire year; not to mention Hart’s own band Dark Rooms and their symbolically beautiful song “I Get Overwhelmed” (heard in both the film and its trailer). Then there’s Rooney Mara’s delicate performance; many will come out of A Ghost Story talking about the already infamous pie-eating scene, in which Mara devours an entire pie for over 5 minutes, in an uncut and stationary shot. We observe as Affleck’s ghost observes, and eventually witness a progression from guilt to punishment to grief, and that seamless escalation is beyond magnetic. It’s a moment many won’t soon forget (including Affleck’s ghost, despite his now inhuman existence), and that notion of forgetting is where A Ghost Story won me over.

It takes a lot for a film to elicit such wonderment in its audience, and in my case I found myself actively digging for repressed memories I may have forgotten during my lifetime. Not for nostalgia’s sake, but to see if I had the ability to do so. But failing to rekindle with such memories never feels like failure, but is instead something natural; A Ghost Story’s main moral is to inform of the mortality of remembrance, and as a result I was nearly weeping through much of the film’s back half. Memory as a human conflict parallels both worlds (our world and the next), and deliberately so, as the film’s final moments show the inevitability of forgetting; it depicts an ancient story of its own legacy that has been lost in time, as well as a moment shared between Affleck and Mara that Affleck’s ghost has already forgotten took place. All we can do is endure, in this life or the next. But would that make it any less human?

Overall Grade: A+

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Director: Nikolaj Arcel
Writers: Akiva Goldsman (screenplay), Jeff Pinkner (screenplay)
Stars: Idris Elba, Matthew McConaughey, Tom Taylor, Jackie Earle Haley

Synopsis: The last Gunslinger, Roland Deschain, has been locked in an eternal battle with Walter O’Dim, also known as the Man in Black, determined to prevent him from toppling the Dark Tower, which holds the universe together. With the fate of the worlds at stake, good and evil will collide in the ultimate battle as only Roland can defend the Tower from the Man in Black.

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Steadfast has been the titular structure, the nexus of time and space, to readers of writer Stephen King’s seven-part, near 4,000-page book series. As turning over parchment (or swiping, if on e-readers) is increasingly becoming an elitist activity, it is just a matter of time before Hollywood elects itself to visualize King’s “magnum-opus” words. Took 10 years and many hands, but it happened. Relief is yet in sight, however, when friends who adore the series all brand it with depressing phrases – “unfilmable,” “no particular genre,” “hard to describe,” “where to begin” and so on – wondering if the brains translating it for moviegoers will be on the same level of creative drunkenness as The King.

Unfortunately, and dishearteningly, Sony Pictures’ The Dark Tower is dry.

After Babylon A.D., this is the second time that a runtime of 90 minutes ruins the world of a promising fantasy material. No matter how skilled one is, that much time is never sufficient to cover Mid-World, a sprawling and distinct setting where the futuristic, Wild West and mystical coexist. Or anything, really. Eleven-year-old “Keystone Earth”-ling Jake Chambers (Tom Taylor) has a lot of short, frenetic dreams – about Mid-World, tower-protecting Gunslinger Roland Deschain (Idris Elba), a hellish dimension and tower-destroyer Walter/Man in Black (Matthew McConaughey) – but after he has awakened the film seems to be stuck on fast-forwarding. It benefits Jake, however, in the sense that his journey to stop the tower from falling and evil invading is never a drag. On the other hand, Roland, the last of his kind who witness the face of his father (Dennis Haysbert) advancing toward death due to Walter, The Dark Tower gifts him with the timeless mantra of Sweet Brown. He seems to be just there to accompany Jake.

In the film, Jake gets the VIP treatment, having a strong enough “shine” (or telepathy – maybe, the film doesn’t confirm) that can pierce dimensions and vanquish an utterly superfluous House Demon. Such is also the source (another maybe) that can be used to bring down the tower via a Death Star-esque ray in one hit, rather than having the fake-skin cronies to abduct a lot of kids and use a number of them when it is demolition time. How can a child’s mind, per the title cards, be weaponized? No clue. How is Walter connected to the evil dimension? Unknown. Still, it is great to see Walter delivered the line “You are the full package, as advertised” to Jake with as much happiness as owning a Lincoln. Or cooking chicken.

We never see the final product, but The Dark Tower’s big bad has the potential to be a suave, GQ-ready and inter-dimensional all-star chef. There is a lot of pleasing hilarity in the film, most of which comes from McConaughey’s deft balancing between playful and ominous, commanding a person to “hate,” “stop breathing” or “kill” with a seductive twist. The Texan actor is a great foil for Elba, who – as usual – dominates the screen with just his stern presence or, surprisingly, magical deadpan delivery. Roland, despite the pain and shaken faith, has a heart, and the actor brings the warmth forward with his eyes. Having this quality duo around is vital to compensate Taylor’s performance, which is OK but gets really constrained at key moments.

As for the fantastical beats, they strive to be small in a world that King has made colossal. Action sequences are tightly staged and framed, and the less CGI employed the better they are. A recent revisit of A Royal Affair shows director Nikolaj Arcel being much more comfortable around character-driven moments, as is his regular d.o.p. Rasmus Videbæk, but since they are already flawed here, accepting the chases, gunplay and fisticuffs for what they are can still leave a substantial void. Hunting down references to King’s other writings may alleviate that. Somewhat. Try this game with alcohol, maybe?

Come to think of it, the personal teetotal status may have to be broken due to three revelations linking The Dark Tower to the RoboCop remake. This will be another occasion where Sony Pictures lets down an acclaimed foreign filmmaker with post-production decisions, extinguishes the possibility of diversity in casting due to underwhelming project and dents the talented Jackie Earle Haley’s career. So much security was courted to ignite the long-dormant project, but it couldn’t even prevent the tower – at least its big-screen version – from following the ways of Babel.

Overall Grade: D

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Director: Matthew Heineman
Stars: Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, Hamoud, Hassan

Synopsis: A documentary that follows the efforts of “Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently,” a handful of anonymous activists who banded together after their homeland was taken over by ISIS in 2014.

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This astonishing new documentary from the team behind 2015’s Cartel Land owes much to that earlier film. Though its myriad cast and infernal setting stand as bold silhouettes atop the ramparts, it’s the film’s cinematic scope that peers out, conspicuous in its self-awareness. Cartel Land leaped into a topic oft-explored by feature-length – to say nothing of Breaking Bad – incursions into the US-Mexico drug war (Sicario, Narco Cultura). City of Ghosts has no such touchstone. Raqqa’s rubble-strewn streets may recall prime-time news reportage, but its thriller narrative expunges all doubt this story belongs anywhere but in the theatre.

This deeply personal account follows anonymous activist group “Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently” (RBSS), from its reactionary inception as ISIL Wahhabism takes hold in the city, to eventual flight to western Europe. There is no three act structure here; no big pay-off nor grand resolution. Indeed, City of Ghosts’ parting gift is quite literally delivered in the maternity ward, the most silver of linings in a sunless sky. Bookended by an award ceremony at which RBSS are being honored, one journalist remarks, “So serious, my friend.” Outwardly concealed by the glamour of the occasion, the broiling discomfort is evident. Acknowledged these men ought to be, but through the prism of western opulence, at once jarring and antithetic, the lack of empathy is accentuated.

There is no sanitized footage here. As we alternate between the recent past and present, we do also the dolly-less photography of Heineman and primitive mobile phone mp4s of Raqqa’s horrors. Seamless intercutting only adds to the immersion, all-but removing entirely the safe detachment in which we might find refuge with our activists. We are invited to public executions without the cautionary warnings we might expect and, in one shocking sequence, witness a son recounting his father’s murder on a laptop, our eyes darting between LCD display and viewer as we struggle to reconcile the world in which these young men have grown, with our own. Therein lies the masterstroke of this documentary: for all its depictions of a world with which we may think we’ve an objective, if tenuous grasp, City of Ghosts injects humanity. In spades. Punctuated by an urgent score and brief moments of communal mirth, the sterile, Syrian shaped bubble with which we’re familiar is burst. Like Cartel Land and Escape Fire before it, the application of “characters” in whose shoes we can trudge for ninety minutes adds colour to a black-and-white album.

With Alex Gibney (Zero Days, Going Clear: Scientology & the Prison of Belief) on board as executive producer I sincerely hope City of Ghosts reaches its deserved audience. A limited theatrical release may mean a reliance on word-of-mouth advertising to find a home, with Amazon having secured worldwide rights for its distribution, including its Prime Video platform. And find it you must, for City of Ghosts is proof that simply pointing a camera in the right direction makes for the most engaging drama.

Overall Grade: A+

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