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Thought + Concentration = Flesh : Empty Man Review

10/30/2020

Philosophers have spent their lives trying to rationalize reality, all boiling down to the question “how do you know for sure?” The Empty Man (David Prior 2020) explores this idea as a means to propel the story. The blur between what we think is real and what isn’t makes for some interesting, and sometimes confusing story elements. The truth of reality is explored throughout the film, peeling back the layers of our day to day lives and into the true nothingness of it all. The film throws a lot of ideas at the audience, conveying them both visually and audibly. Visually, the film is well shot, the camera angles show character dynamics and the imagery becomes very haunting. There are a variety of locations and good production value, keeping the audience's attention the whole time. However, there are some problems in the screenwriting. The dialogue becomes clunky and out of place that it pulls you out of the story. I’m more focused on the on-the-nose dialogue instead of the captivating visual story. Overall, The Empty Man is a philosophical head trip, but don’t expect to be fully immersed.

The rest of the review contains spoilers for The Empty Man, and contains descriptions that may be disturbing to some readers, discretion is advised.

The story is set up with a cold open that almost feels like a short film. It introduces the start of the Empty Man, the process of how a normal person turns into a transmitter of energy. Set in 1995, a group of tourists hike up a mountain in Bhutan. One of them is tranced and mindlessly falls down into a religious shrine. Whatever power that dwells down there takes hold of him, emptying him of thought and feeling. From this, I thought the film was going to be a survival film, his three friends trying to weather the cold while also trying to figure out what is wrong with him. But this story ends as soon as it starts, everyone but the now Empty Man dies, while he is left muttering in the cold. This intro sequence is very compelling, and is a nice reversal of expectations. It makes us think we’re in one kind of movie, but really we’re in another. It is a bit confusing at first, but it does set up the end of the story, giving the audience that “aha” moment along with temporary catharsis.

For the remainder of the film, we follow James, a retired cop, who is forced back into action when his neighbor’s daughter, Amanda, goes missing. In the chase to find her and her friends, he finds the true meaning of his existence. As James investigates, we come across some distracting dialogue. For example, a guy James has never met before says, “hey, you’re the famous retired cop, undercover right?” I couldn’t let that go for the rest of the film. The guy isn’t even introducing himself, he’s just in the room and awkwardly says it. After watching the film, I understand that dialogue was meant to establish James in the world. Characters beside James confirm his extenstence by saying that they’ve known him for a long time. It’s a way for the dialogue to reveal plot, but it didn’t maintain audience immersion through its delivery. That line along with a few others were not realistic enough to be believable, which made it hard to stay immersed.

The story is structured around an unconventional philosophy. The idea that thought is the creation of all things, That nothing is real unless we think it, anything outside of understanding through thought doesn't exist. James finds that Amanda and her friends are connected to the Pontitfix Society, which believes in this line of thinking. Furthemore, they believe that to truly understand this notion, you must receive energy waves transmitted from the Empty Man. The Empty Man is no longer a person, but a tool for understanding the “black endless chaos” of true reality. The monster of the film transmits messages through the Empty Man to the members of the Pontitfix Society. They become hive minded, subdued into spreading its ‘truth.’ The previous Empty Man, the hiker from the beginning of the film, has been left to be cared for in a hospital, where all the followers of the Pontitfix Society go to receive the truth.

We discover that all of this thought, no matter how outlandish it may seem, is true in the film’s universe. That flesh can be made through thought and that only what can be thought is real. This is proved by James, who we discover is not a real person who has a life and relationships, but a man, about 3 days old, constructed by the Pontitfix Society to become their new Empty Man. Before this discovery, James is talking with others, remembering his past, and working to find out who is behind the murders. James' realization of this reverts his mind into a state of hallucinations and non-being. It blurs the line between what we think is real and what we think are hallucinations. The end is a collage of imagery, revealing James has been in multiple places at once and that those he had talked to don’t actually know him. We ask ourselves if what we saw even happened, or if it was all some sort of dream in James’ mind.

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The Legend of Korra: Humanizing a Hero

10/23/2020

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by Landen Kennedy

SPOILERS FOR THE LEGEND OF KORRA

     Avatar: The Last Airbender (Nickelodeon, 2005-2008) was a popular show about a fantasy world in which some of its inhabitants have the special ability to “bend” the elements: air, earth, water, or fire. One person in the world is the Avatar. This person can bend all four elements, and is reincarnated throughout the world’s history. After The Last Airbender met with critical and commercial success, and with a plot device like reincarnation, a sequel show was a no-brainer, and thus The Legend of Korra (Nickelodeon, 2012-2014) was born.
     The show follows the next reincarnation of the Avatar, a girl from the Southern Water Tribe named Korra. She trains under the son of previous Avatar Aang in Republic City, the seat of the new government that Aang helped create. The show is self aware in the respect that this new Avatar is living in the shadow of Aang, quite literally in fact, as a massive statue of Aang rests in the harbor near Korra’s new residence, Airbender Island. The show is even more self-aware in that the creators address the crowd immediately as a young child Korra yells, “I’m the Avatar, and you gotta deal with it!”
  The fanbase of The Last Airbender is torn on Korra, with some praising the show and the new directions it takes the world, and some wishing the franchise had been left alone. I find myself on the side which favors the show, as it not only continues the themes of the original, but also pushes the envelope and the world in new and fascinating directions. The biggest of these changes is that the world has seen significant advancement since the original show. There are new technologies, like early automobiles and moving pictures, aka “movers” in this world, as well as new governments and more intermingling of the world’s cultures. This creates a setting that is simultaneously familiar and foreign to the viewer.

The world of The Legend of Korra is much more technologically advanced than it was during The Last Airbender.

Korra is a much different Avatar than Aang was. She starts off with the brazen confidence and tenacity that Aang had to learn over the course of his show. Some might see this as making Korra too powerful to start, but as her story unfolds over four seasons and encounters with various villains change her outlook on herself and the world, she learns to be more like Aang. By the end of the show, she would prefer to talk to the villain first and try to reach a peaceful resolution to conflict, whereas in the first few seasons she would rather beat the enemy into submission.
The show is not only about the Avatar, but also the people she surrounds herself with. Tenzin, her master, is the only Airbending master in the world. Bolin and Mako are brothers, an earthbender and a firebender respectively, and Korra’s Professional Bending teammates. Asami is a genius and daughter of a famous inventor. Lin Beifong is the gruff chief of the Metalbending Police in the city and the daughter of one of Aang’s best friends. There are also Tenzin’s children, Jinorah, Ikki, and Meelo, as well as Lin Beifong’s extended family, and several others. There are so many side characters that the world feels genuinely large, however, because there are so many, we do not get to see nearly as much development for their characters as we saw in The Last Airbender. Fortunately, a lot of time is spent on Korra’s development, making her the most engaging character to watch.
One way this show greatly expands on the world we know is by exploring the spiritual side of the Avatar’s duties. The Avatar is not only supposed to keep the four nations in harmony, but also the physical and spirit worlds. In The Last Airbender, we touch on the tip of the spiritual iceberg, but in Korra we dive right into the deep end, especially in season 2. This season is often regarded as the lowest in quality of the four, however, this is due to how much is spent focusing on spiritual matters rather than the more grounded politics that fans are used to. We deal with a villain of metaphysical status and abilities, as well as spiritual concepts that never get brought up in The Last Airbender.

The main cast of The Legend of Korra, from left to right: Asami, Bolin (and his pet Pabu), Korra, Mako, and Tenzin

The villains are often a highlight, as they are all used to further Korra’s character and act as a foil to her. The first villain, Amon, is the leader of the Equalist movement, who wants to take away the bending abilities of all benders so that the non-benders can finally be equal. The second villain is Korra’s uncle Unalaq who wants to merge with a spirit of chaos to become a Dark Avatar to replace Korra. The third villain, Zaheer, is the leader of a terrorist organization who gains the ability to Airbend and wants to rid the world of the Avatar. The final villain is a metalbender named Kuvira who wants to unite the Earth Kingdom to bring peace, but uses fascist ideals to do so.
Korra starts the show very confident in her abilities and her role as the Avatar, however, she often thinks too highly of herself. Each villain lowers her confidence in herself by dealing devastating blows to her, until she is finally broken and afraid. She has to learn to find confidence in herself and to see the value in everyone. She has to realize just how human she is to truly be the hero she knows that she is destined to be.

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The Killing of a Sacred Deer Analysis

10/19/2020

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By Ravi Ahuja

“I believe the most logical thing, no matter how harsh this may sound, is to kill a child. Because we can have another child. I still can and you can. And if you can't, we can try IVF, but I'm sure we can.”

In the lore of Greek myth, King Agamemnon was preparing to sail off and conquer Troy when he unwittingly killed one of Artemis’ sacred deer. Artemis, furious at this transgression, stops the wind from blowing and prevents Agamenon and his fleet from sailing to Troy. The only thing he can do to atone for his mistake is to sacrifice his daughter, Iphigenia. Some versions of the myth end with Iphigenia being sacrificed to Artemis, while some end with Artemis providing a deer to replace Iphigenia at the moment of sacrifice, reminiscent of the story of Abraham on Mount Moriah.

Steven (Colin Farrell) and Martin (Barry Keoghan) talking at the hospital

Yorgos Lanthimos retells this story in a modern setting with Steven Murphy, a renowned heart surgeon, taking the place of Agamemnon. Steven is married to a beautiful woman, well respected in her own field of medicine. His two children are obedient and intelligent, participating in after-school activities like choir and piano practice. The one blemish in an otherwise pristine life is his secret friendship with Martin, a teenage boy who he occasionally spends time with. The nature and cause of their relationship is a mystery until we learn that Martin is the son of a patient who died on Steven’s operating table. Their friendship is stable for a while, until Martin invites Steven to his home for dinner, where his mother makes sexual advances on Steven. He quickly rebuffs these advances and leaves their home. Following this dinner, Steven stops talking to Martin, who knowingly tried to set the two up, thinking that they would be a good couple. Soon after cutting ties with Martin, Steven’s son Bob becomes paralyzed. Martin explains the situation very simply to Steven. Bob will remain paralyzed and refuse food to the point of starvation for a while, then his eyes will begin to bleed and he will die. Steven’s daughter and wife will soon follow. The only way to stop this fate is for Steven to kill one of them.

Bob (Sunny Suljic) collapses at the exit of the hospital as Anna (Nicole Kidman) stands by

Despite both this movie and the myth it’s adapted from appearing on the surface to be about sacrifice, it is actually much more concerned with the idea of justice. A sacrifice made unwillingly is not a sacrifice but a punishment, a price for some mistake. In this case, a death for a death, or as Martin states, “just like you killed a member of my family, now you gotta kill a member of your family to balance things out”. This idea of balance is entirely relative, and one can see just how much it changes depending on the perspective you take. From Martin’s point of view, Steven killed his father through a surgical mistake. Justice is straightforward; Steven must kill a member of his own family to undergo the same suffering he made Martin go through. Martin tries explaining this to Steven straightforwardly through the film, but he refuses to listen. “I just want to show you an example… just one little example to show you what I mean,” Martin says, viciously biting down on Steven’s arm and leaving a bloody wound. While Steven recoils in pain and shock, Martin explains in simple terms, “Should I apologize? No… No, there’s only one way to make you and me both feel better,”. He doesn’t hesitate to chomp down just as brutally on his own arm, tearing away a chunk of flesh. To Martin, justice is punitive. The only right way to treat a culprit is to make them face the same consequences and pain that they put others through.
Yet, from perspectives other than Martin’s, this idea of justice is completely imbalanced. Steven is a skilled surgeon who rarely makes mistakes, but he still can’t be expected to save the life of every patient put in front of him. Even if it would be right to find blame in Steven, other people are being punished for his mistake. His wife, Anna, even directly confronts Martin about this, telling him, “I don't understand why I should have to pay the price. Why my children should have to pay the price.” Punitive justice is never perfectly balanced, because no two actions have the same consequences. The context surrounding each crime, culprit, and victim will always be unique and can never be replicated. Even Martin realizes that perfect balance can’t be achieved, responding to Anna, “I don't know if what is happening is fair, but it's the only thing I can think of that's close to justice.”

Bob’s eyes begin to bleed, signalling that he will die soon

Aside from the theme of justice, fatherhood is also a recurring idea throughout this film. It is notable that Martin doesn’t enact his punitive justice on Steven until he rejects becoming Martin’s father. Steven does play a paternal role to Martin in the beginning of the movie, showing him around the hospital and giving him a watch as a present. In being ignored, Martin may have felt like another father figure was being taken away from him. It is also interesting to examine Steven’s parental relationship to his actual children. Although he is a very providing father, giving his children gifts and opportunities, he seems somewhat absent from their lives. He is also extremely strict and even downright cruel at points. When Bob first falls ill, before Steven knows that Martin is the cause, he treats Bob with no compassion at all, letting him drop to the floor on more than one occasion and forcing a donut into his mouth to get him to eat. It seems that Lanthimos is criticizing the idea that a good father is merely someone who provides for their children, as Steven does that to both Martin and his own children while still being detached and coldhearted with them.

Anna looks at Steven through a pane of glass

Of course, Steven’s characterization is also a product of Lanthimos’ directorial style, which I would be remiss to not discuss. If there is one thing Lanthimos is known for, it is his treatment of character; or more specifically, the way he wields his actors. Lines are consistently delivered with a flat and unaffected voice and emotion is avoided whenever possible. It’s a style not unlike how Wes Anderson uses his actors, but instead of the charming and whimsical worlds those characters populate, Lanthimos opts to place his characters in much darker contexts. In his previous films The Lobster (2015) and Dogtooth (2009), which feature inherently absurd premises, this style works wonderfully to create moments of absurdist black humor. The Killing of a Sacred Deer, while far from a realistic movie, does have a much more grounded and plausible foundation, transforming the feeling of Lanthimos’ usual style from comically absurd to unsettling and even horrifying.
Along with the dry and unemotional acting, characters also frequently say or do things that would be considered extremely socially inappropriate or awkward, with other characters not even batting an eye. Both Anna and Kim (the Murphy’s daughter) discuss Kim’s menstruation in polite conversation with guests, Steven publicly tells Anna that he does not value her medical opinion in this case, the list goes on. This combination of stoic acting and lack of social norms features in all of Lanthimos’ films, and seems to be done at least in part as a way to explore the idea of what makes us human. There are many moments where it feels as if the characters on screen are aliens or machines rather than human beings. They aren’t totally lacking human emotions like love and anger, but they don’t seem affected by them the same way that normal people are either. With this in mind, exploring very human topics like justice and fatherhood is an interesting choice by Lanthimos. Perhaps he sees punitive justice as a rational, but inhuman solution. We often like to think of the legal system as blind and objective, abstracting from human emotion, but maybe this isn’t always for the best. An eye for an eye is rational, but we would be better off seeking restorative justice than seeking to make the whole world blind. Similarly, it could be that Lanthimos is rejecting the idea of rationality being all that is needed for fatherhood, as true fatherly love is irrational. Whether or not this is his goal, his direction is always interesting, even if its motivation is ambiguous.
Not everyone will love this slow psychological horror, with Lanthimos’ style being too off putting for some, but it’s still worth checking out for arthouse film fans looking for a unique movie. The Killing of a Sacred Deer is streaming now on Netflix in the United States.

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Re:Zero - A Review

10/16/2020

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In almost every video game, the player is able to experience the world created by the developers through the eyes of an invincible character. Although the player’s character might die in the game, the player always has a second chance since the character can always respawn. In other words, the death the character experiences is temporary. Because of this, the player has the freedom to do whatever they want, since the only repercussion they have to experience is a temporary death.

Re:Zero - Starting Life in Another World (Re:ゼロから始める異世界生活), directed by Masaharu Watanabe in 2016, is an Japanese animation series that brings to life a character that must live life as if he was living it in a fighting video game, where each death just results in a resurrection at a “save point”.

Although Re:Zero was released a couple years ago, a second season has just been released in the summer of 2020. Since the original series was so successful, there was a lot of excitement and anticipation for the new season. However, because of the time gap of four years in between the release of the first and second season, many viewers have been returning to the first season of Re:Zero as a refresher before venturing into the second season.

Re:Zero follows the life of Natsuki Subaru (voiced by Yuusuke Kobayashi), an ordinary human who has been swept away from his ordinary life into a fantasy world. Almost every being in that world has some sort of magic or fighting ability, but Subaru quickly learns that he does not have one. Low-level thugs immediately pick on him, since he is physically and magically weak compared to the other , but he ends up being saved by a mysterious white-haired girl (voiced by Rie Takahashi) who calls herself “Satella”. In return for saving him, Subaru agrees to help Satella, but they eventually get cornered in the slums. Subaru is powerless as both of them are brutally murdered.

A couple seconds later, Subaru reawakens, and the exact events that had happened to him previously are happening again. After following a similar path and getting murdered again, he begins to realize that every time he dies, he gets brought back to where he began.

As the story progresses, it becomes evident that only Subaru can remember events that happen in previous timelines where he has died. Information about the environment becomes his only weapon. Although he is physically weak, he can fight to survive by making decisions, so the difference between video games and Subaru’s situation becomes apparent as he continues to die and resurrect. It begins to take a heavy toll on Subaru’s mental health, and at some points in the story, it seems like his only fate is to die repeatedly with no way out.

Although Subaru lives in a fantasy world, the plot tackles themes of reality by showing Subaru’s human emotions as he goes through trials of death and despair. In video games, the main character does not usually suffer upon death, but since Subaru remembers his deaths, he is forced to endure the pain. The series is successful in displaying the humanity of Subaru through his emotional trauma.

Many story-based video games have the problem of being tedious and repetitive. This is because a player might have to keep repeating a part of the storyline if they keep dying or making the wrong decision. However, Re:Zero manages to avoid monotonous storylines and at the same time make each of Subaru’s “attempts” necessary for the plot to continue. Parts in the story that have already been experienced by the viewers are often either skipped or completely changed. Duplicate or identical scenes almost never happen, allowing the story to always be evolving in a new and interesting way. These evolutions allow the plot to contain numerous twists and turns, keeping the audience on their toes.

Another reason Re:Zero is able to avoid predictability is because the characters are so versatile. Just because a character does something in one timeline does not necessarily mean they will do the same thing in another timeline. If Subaru knows the future and acts differently, supporting characters could suddenly become opposing characters. For example, in the first timeline, Subaru and Satella immediately become friends. However, after Subaru is killed, he finds Satella and starts to act as if he knows her. Never having met Subaru, she suddenly becomes enraged and warns Subaru not to call her by that name. Just because she helped him in one timeline, because of the way he acted with the new information, she refuses to help him in the new timeline.

The series as a whole has a colorful, crisp feel. The bright colors during comedic moments of the fantasy world allow those scenes to shine, but when the dark and terrifying moments happen, all of the happy saturation disappears. The contrast between the different tones of the series is accentuated through the art. Each character in the series has a distinct design. They are easily recognizable, and like most anime, each of them has a distinct hair color and clothing style. The main protagonist has black hair, while the main supporting characters have hair colors ranging from red, blue, and all the way to white.

Re:Zero at its core is a video game in the form of animation. Although, like most video games, it may seem like a fun, happy story, it may surprise audiences by tackling darker themes such as suffering and the mental strain the main character has to endure. Themes of human weakness become very apparent even in a fantasy setting. Anyone who appreciates a great story, filled with multi-faceted characters and unpredictable events, would definitely enjoy watching the series. For a storyline about living the same parts of life over and over, Re:Zero is anything but repetitive.

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Role Reversals in The Hustle

10/12/2020

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By Zoe Leininger

The 2019 film The Hustle directed by Chris Addison is a clever remake of Frank Oz’s Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. Anne Hathaway and Rebel Wilson star in the roles previously held by Micheal Caine and Steve Martin respectively. The premise of two con-men in a turf war over an affluent tourist town is given a whole new perspective by making the main characters female. After thoroughly enjoying the film I was surprised to find that it was only given a 13% on Rotten Tomatoes. As a remake the film had to field a lot of negative reviews comparing it to the original, but I think that even though the film follows the 1988 version virtually scene by scene it finds something new in the story just by changing the gender of the characters.

The scene in the original where Freddy (Steve Martin) meets Lawrence (Micheal Caine) establishes the idea of the con as a way to get money out of women instead of the traditional man providing for the woman. Rebel Wilson’s character Penny has a deeper reason for why she performs her cons: she sees men using women’s sensitivity and emotions against them and decides to turn the tables. Instead of just being a humorously flawed rationale like Freddy’s, it sets up a deeper theme that is developed throughout the film. When Anne Hathaway’s character Josephine is teaching Penny how to do the sophisticated cons that she does she modifies Penny’s approach by saying that what men want from women more than sex is to be a hero. Men like to be able to come to the rescue of vulnerable women.

Penny (Rebel Wilson) and Josephine (Anne Hathaway) meet on a train

Freddy (Steve Martin) and Lawrence (Micheal Caine) meet on a train

What Josephine says goes beyond the idea of creepy men using women for their own pleasure. It speaks to an underlying societal tendency of men viewing women as weaker and a refusal to truly see them as equals. As Josephine says while explaining why her methods work “no man will believe a woman is smarter than he is.” Instead of fighting against this tendency, they exploit it for their own gain. This idea does come up in the original story when the men are themselves conned by a woman at the end of their own elaborate con, but when the con artists themselves are women the theme takes on a whole other meaning. Having the women be the focus of the story gives us a look at how it feels for strong minded women to have to operate within the confines of patriarchal society.
Alongside this is another theme of women supporting women. Penny initially spills everything about what she does to Josephine because as another woman she would understand her reasons for it. But after they find they are trying to do the same job in the same town they are at odds with each other. Josephine is trying to drive Penny out of Beaumont Sur Mer so that she can remain at the top while Penny sees an opportunity to expand her petty crimes to something bigger.
In a competition to see who can get money out of their target, Thomas, Josephine is pretending to be a psychiatrist helping Penny with her supposed psychological blindness. A scene in a club has Penny talking to a nearby group of women while Josephine dances with Thomas. To try to get him alone with her Penny tells the women that he was her boyfriend until Josephine stole him from her. The idea of sisterhood and women supporting one another is shown by how angry they are on her behalf and their willingness to confront Josephine to help Penny. In the 1988 version this happens but it is the bond of Naval service that is exploited by Freddy to get rid of Lawrence.

Penny explaining to the women at the club how Josephine stole her fiance

There is a significance to the fact that with Penny, there were no club or community ties needed for the women to feel connected. The burden of the patriarchal society is enough of a commonality that the women were willing to help a fellow woman. Penny, and then Josephine, betrayed that instinctive trust by using it in their conflict with each other. The scene highlights the phenomenon in culture that when women try to get ahead in business and their careers they often have to choose between supporting the other women around them and making sure they get ahead themselves.
Remakes of well loved movies tend to be judged more harshly than most movies. However, I felt that this film deserved a lot more recognition than it got. The plotline was nearly identical to the original, yet it was able to address some really key issues that get left out of films. Recently there have been quite a few films like Oceans Eight (Gary Ross, 2018), Ghostbusters (Paul Feig, 2016), and What Men Want (Adam Shankman, 2019) which have taken original films and gender swapped the characters to retell the story. They haven’t tended to have very good receptions because they were viewed as old and repetitive.
Even with stories that have been told before, it is a valuable exercise to look at how different the meanings of scenes can be just by switching the main characters from men to women. The Hustle is an enjoyable comedy that is cleverly made and employs phenomenal actors, but a lot of its value lies deeper within the context of the scenario the audience is presented with. Looking at the original and the remake side by side shows that the female lead version is about more than just having female leads. The film points out the disparity between the ways men and women experience the world. In the recent times of the #metoo movement and the 4% challenge to have female directors take the lead in studio projects this is an important message to spread and one that shouldn’t be glossed over just because a film reuses old jokes.

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Prisoners: A Review

10/9/2020

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by Mason Leaver

Denis Villeneuve is a director who is, in my opinion, criminally unrecognized. While his work has received great critical feedback, he is not the household name that he deserves to be. The man has an absolutely amazing career. The French-Canadian director started his career with a series of well received small budget films, such as Maelstrom (2000) and Incendies (2010). More recently, he’s directed films like Enemy (2013), Sicario (2015), Arrival (2016), and Blade Runner 2049 (2017). He is now directing the highly anticipated adaptation of Dune. There’s no doubt that Villeneuve is one of the most prolific directors working today, producing six films in seven years, all very well received. But I feel that his first film in this six film stretch, Prisoners (2013), is perhaps his best, and also least appreciated. Prisoners is a film packed with quality performances, cinematography, and story, and it represents Villeneuve at his very best.

Prisoners is the story of a father, Keller Dover, played by Hugh Jackman, searching for his daughter and her friend, who have gone missing on Thanksgiving day. Investigating the case is Detective Loki, played by Jake Gyllenhaal. The film follows the two men as they go to greater and greater lengths to find the missing girls. As Detective Loki dives deeper into the case, he must also reign in Dover, who begins a vigilante search for the girls. As the film continues the mystery unravels itself with plenty of fascinating twists and turns. The film is like Taken meets Zodiac.

Hugh Jackman as Keller Dover

Prisoners has a phenomenal cast, and their talent is put on full display. Hugh Jackman is by far the most notable of them all. He portrays Dover as a man of faith driven to the edge, willing to do absolutely whatever it takes to get his daughter back. The rage that Jackman brings to the character is often reminiscent of his time playing Wolverine. Jake Gylennhaal also does a great job, but he is given less to work with than Jackman. While Jackman gets plenty of opportunities to go absolutely off the rails and push his limits, Gylennhaal only really gets one very brief moment to lose his cool. This is no fault of the film’s: it is in the nature of Loki to be cool and collected. But Gylennhaal works within the limits of the character to bring about a great performance, even if he cannot be as loud and attention grabbing as Jackman. Terrence Howard and Viola Davis also bring great performances as the parents of the other missing girl. While avoiding spoilers, be prepared to enjoy unsettling performances from Paul Dano and David Dastmalchian.

Paired with the ever talented Roger Deakins (who also worked with Villeneuve on Sicario and Blade Runner 2049), the film is beautifully shot. While it’s not flashy, Deakins’ use of light and shadow creates an atmosphere that draws the viewer in. Some shots are nearly totally dark, save for small beams of light illuminating the subject. The lighting all feels very natural- no great differentiation in saturated colors. Instead, Deakins use a grounded style that makes for a “realistic” feeling to the dreary Pennsylvania landscape, homes and offices that highlights the most beautiful and brutal aspects of the environments we find ourselves in every day. Of course, this approach to drawing out interesting lighting from our everyday surroundings also plays into the themes of the film- what lies just beneath the surface of suburbia is very dark. The “every day” world is much more complicated than it can seem.

A use of Light and Shadow in "Prisoners"

Prisoners is a very dark film, forcing it’s audience to face some very difficult questions. One of the most prominent of these questions is the tension between the rule of law and frontier justice. Detective Loki, a man committed to serving and upholding the law, has to face a challenge to his principles as he sees the system failing. Every moment he is tempted to give in to his desire to ignore the law in order to find these children. Meanwhile Dover, a man of faith, beholden to a higher power, pursues a kind of frontier justice to rescue his daughter. The film does not answer the question of who is in the right here, it simply introduces us to this tension and asks us to wrestle with it.

Each of us has people in our lives who we say we would do anything for. Prisoners asks us if we truly mean that. Dover, in his frontier justice hunt for his daughter, resorts to horrible methods of torture. Yet he does what he does because he believes it is the only way to save his daughter, to protect what he loves most. The film asks us to question: is torture ever acceptable? Would we be able or willing to do what Dover does? Prisoners forces us to ask these questions and to see the reality of what torture is and where it comes from.

Paul Dano as Alex Jones (left) and Jake Gyllenhaal as Detective Loki (right)

Prisoners is some of Villeneuve’s finest work. The plot and performances are top-tier, and while it is a very long film at two and a half hours, Prisoners creates a tension so gripping but chilling that you cannot help but watch on.

Viewers who enjoy Prisoners may also enjoy Zodiac and the HBO miniseries True Detective.

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Discussion: I'm Thinking of Ending Things

10/8/2020

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Did you enjoy Charlie Kaufman's new film I'm Thinking of Ending Things?Hear our writers' discussion about it and leave a comment with your own thoughts on it.

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The Reality and Imagination that Creates Insanity: Color Out of Space Analysis

10/5/2020

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by Samantha Shuma

When we think of aliens, we may think of creatures from Star Wars or Alien. They typically have a humanoid or animalistic shape with weird, often slimy features. Although they look like something out of this world, they are easily comprehensible to the human mind. We do notably understand their reason for being, but we see them as a threat and do anything we can to destroy them. What if, like the concept of infinity, aliens were something completely incomprehensible to the human mind? You go insane from the amount of stress your brain is experiencing from just looking at it. Color Out of Space (Richard Stanley, 2019) takes aliens into this realm, and lets audiences watch a family go insane as they become surrounded by the Color (the alien of the film). It corrupts the minds of the family, making them hear, see and act differently. While they suffer mentally, their surroundings are affected as well. The Color absorbs into everything it touches, affecting plants, water, air, animal, and time throughout the film. The combination of physical and mental changes the family and their reality undergo is intense, and it is this combination that makes the family’s minds surrender to the Color.

The rest of this analysis will contain spoilers for The Color Out of Space. This film is a horror movie, which may contain some material of blood and gore. Reader discretion is advised.

The Color travels to Earth via a meteorite, crash landing in the Gardener family’s front yard. The meteorite glows a bright magenta, which is a color that can only be seen by the human eye. It’s a color that doesn’t actually exist, it’s our brain’s way of interpreting certain types of light (when you mix red and violet light, your eyes should see green, but the brain interprets it differently as a way brings the ends of the visible spectrum together) (Helmenstine, 2019). We don’t actually SEE magenta, our brains create it. So to literally see magenta would be incredibly taxing for the human mind to comprehend. Our minds would be affected differently, which is explored in film. The Gardener’s face some severe mental trauma from merely looking at it. The youngest child, Jack, falls victim first, believing he is talking with the Color, and that the well (the place the Color mostly resides) is his best friend. A little later in the film, The rest of the family, Nathan (husband), Theresa (wife),Lavinia (daughter), and Benny (older son), seem to go insane. Each character is affected by the color differently. Their downfall based around their initial mental problems. For example, Nathan is constantly worried of becoming his father, who was abusive to him growing up. The Color works that towards its favor, as Nathan becomes abusive towards his family, making sure his children don’t leave the house. Levinia believes in witchcraft, she hurts herself to perform rituals and believes the Color is her rituals being fulfilled. Since the battle against the Color is mainly a mental one, it exaggerates the mental weakness of the creatures it possesses to subdue them. By the end, the whole family has lost their sense of reality and becomes husks of their former selves, existing on a plane of existence different from anything we have imagined.

The family is basically doomed from the start, as the mental battle against the Color is already impossible to overcome. Their resulting mental state makes it impossible to be rational, but their minds aren’t the only thing affected by the Color. The environment surrounding the home along with the family’s physical bodies are heavily affected as well. The physical transformation everything goes through makes the Color not only a threat to the family, but to the whole planet. The meteorite the Color travels from is not made of any kind of rock we would recognize. It’s made out of some plastic material that dissolves over time. As the meteorite dissolves into the ground, the Color fuses into the surrounding land. This affects the growing of plants, which affects the animals. There are alpacas, a horse and a dog on the property. The horse and the dog become hostile and run away. The alpacas have a worse fate, from rooted grass and drinking the Color filled water, they get very sick. They lose their form as their bodies melt, eventually creating a slimy pile of unrecognizable flesh and bone. When Nathan goes to check on the alpacas, their form does not immediately bother him. It isn’t until their screaming makes him angry that he puts them out of their misery. If anyone in their right mind saw them, they would have ran, but Nathan didn’t seem to care. The fact that the family’s mind is being taxed so heavily by the Color makes it impossible for them to act rationally to run away or defend themselves.

The video below has content that may disturb some readers, discretion is advised.

The fact that the Color is incomprehensible makes it uncontrollable by anything on Earth. Since the Gardeners cannot process the Color fully, they have no means to fight against. Going back to the example of a Zenomorph from Alien, we can tell just by looking at it that it is dangerous. Its sharp claws and teeth make it anybody’s worst nightmare. Since we can look at it and understand it, we can find the Zenomorph’s weakness and ultimately kill it (as it is killed at the end of almost every Alien movie). Think back to the Color, it’s only physical representation is a misty gas of a color that doesn’t exist. The family never realizes there is something exterrestrial in their mists, the Color is never seen as a friend or a threat, making it impossible for the family to fight against.

A typical alien movie would have a crew on a spaceship fighting a slimy, flesh eating monster, but the Color is something much scarier than that. Although we the audience can see it, it is an unknown killer to the Gardeners. We see how it makes them hurt themselves and act aggressively towards each other, but they never realize what is happening themselves. Even when they do try to leave, they forget that they were trying to leave and mindlessly go off to do something else. Their minds wither away as the Color seeps into their air, water and plants. The Color isn’t something the anyone’s mind can really process. We do not know how to react when we cannot discern something as good or evil. As the film shows, we wouldn’t react at all. The family goes around like everything is okay, even as Nathan sits in an empty room talking to herself or Benny going down the well to save the dog (which isn’t down there).Their minds change as their environment changes, making the whole reality in around the home slowly change as the Color becomes more powerful. Everything, body, mind and environment, all changing at once helps the family adjust into insanity, making it easy for the Color to control them, shape them and kill them.

Work Cited:
Anne Marie Helmenstine, Ph.D. Why Magenta Is Not a Color of the Spectrum. 2019, www.thoughtco.com/what-is-the-wavelength-of-magenta-606166.

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Cursed: Series Review

10/2/2020

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By Zoe Leininger

After the finale of fantasy drama Game of Thrones (HBO, 2011) aired last year, many new shows like The Witcher (Netflix, 2019) and Carnival Row (Amazon Prime Video, 2019) have risen up to take the spotlight in this increasingly popular genre of television shows. This summer Netflix added a new show called Cursed to the mix. After having it recommended by a friend I was curious to watch it and see how it measures up to other fantasy shows I enjoy.
A twist on an Arthurian legend, this new show focuses on the young sorceress Nimue, also known as the Lady of the Lake. In this retelling Nimue is one of the Fae, magical beings who are being driven out of Britain by the humans. Hunted both by King Uther Pendragon and a religious group called the Red Paladins because of her possession of the Sword of Power, Nimue has become a symbol of hope for the struggling Fae tribes.
For anyone with a previous knowledge of Arthurian legends the show may be somewhat confusing at first. For instance King Uther and Arthur are shown to be about the same age, even though traditionally Uther is Arthur’s father. I kept expecting some revelation about their kinship through the first half of the show only to find that they never even meet. For anyone planning to watch it just keep in mind that the show is very different from any other King Arthur story and needs to be watched purely separate from the canon materials. It takes the stories of chivalry and a golden age of knighthood and transforms them into a world of magical persecution and an honor code that oppresses the people.

Nimue (Kathrine Langford) discovers how to wield the Sword of Power in a shot that hints at her name in Arthurian legends "The Lady of the Lake"

While being an enjoyable show with a compelling female protagonist and an interesting premise, Cursed is currently in competition with the shows mentioned above. With so much content available in the genre a show really needs to stand out to succeed. Unfortunately I don’t think that Cursed really offers anything new to the fantasy scene. It definitely has potential, especially after the first few episodes, but when viewers make judgments about a show a few minutes in it isn’t enough for it to just have potential.
The character of Nimue, played by Kathrine Langford, was developed well early in the show. We see from the start that she has powers that even the other Fae don’t understand. She struggles with being feared by both humans who hate magic and her own people. She has to grow into her role as a leader and symbol for the Fae despite this. Langford’s portrayal of this young woman’s journey to becoming a warrior queen is compelling and brings new life to an ancient character.
This being said, I found the side characters to be somewhat lacking in dimension in the first few episodes. Later on in the show there were mysteries and more depth uncovered about some of the other heroes and villains, but it wasn’t foreshadowed in a way that made me anticipate learning more about the characters. King Uther is a whiny, belligerent ruler who relies on Merlin, a drunk, washed up wizard with no magic. Father Carden, the leader of the Red Paladins, is shown as purely evil who does nothing but burn Fae. For how serious the show is trying to be, these over dramatic characterizations don’t do it any favors. Although more is revealed about the characters roughly halfway through the season, I think most viewers won’t watch that far because the earlier episodes don’t promise much.

A tribe of the Fae beings who inhabit the world of Cursed

The Witcher and Carnival Row shows that are competing with Cursed for the fantasy fan’s attention, aside from having a season’s head start on Cursed, have managed to do what Cursed attempted but fell short at. Carnival Row has a similar premise to Cursed with a variety of races of Fae who are oppressed by human civilizations, as well as a strong female character who is fighting against that oppression. The Witcher is also set in a fantasy realm and deals with themes of magic and destiny like Cursed, but isn’t afraid to poke fun at itself and the cliches of the genre. What both these shows did well that Cursed missed the mark on at first was a good ensemble of supporting characters who are engaging and fleshed out. Cursed jumped right into developing an involved plotline and the characters didn’t have much to them until later in the season.
I genuinely enjoyed watching the latter half of the season. The action began to pick up and the whole story became more cohesive. The characters were given backstories that made them seem more real and less like caricatures. It is a shame that the show couldn’t have found it’s stride within the first three episodes because there isn’t a lot there to make viewers want to keep watching.

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