Category: Reviews

There Is A Movie Called ‘A Teacher’

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A Teacher (2013)
Written & Directed by Hannah Fidell
75 min.

There is a movie called A Teacher. I want you to read that sentence again, so in case you’re like me and your automatic reaction to instructions is to ignore them, I will type it again, forcing you to:

There is a movie called A Teacher. 

Here’s why I like that sentence—the most you can say about the movie A Teacher is that the person the filmmaker shot the most footage of was playing a teacher in this movie about a teacher that is called A Teacher. Nothing could ever be more literal. I have no idea what writer-director Hannah Fidell was going for with her title, but she has achieved the strongest connection in history between a piece of art and its title—A Teacher is most definitely 75 minutes of a teacher.

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‘Glengarry Glen Ross’: Just Watch It Already

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A close friend of mine committed suicide this past Monday. Someone I loved dearly and always felt like family. The last time I saw her was about a year ago, and it was wonderful—we had a great time together. It was the most perfect last memory of her that I could ever ask for.

This review is for her. One of the many things we shared was a deep love for this movie. I can’t begin to make sense of her passing, but I can at least write this piece. She’d be pleased to know it was out there.

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‘How To Train Your Dragon 2’: Two Good Acts, Followed By A Bad One

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How to Train Your Dragon 2 (2014)
Written & Directed by Dean DeBlois
102 min.

Mild spoilers ahead.

This film is a joyride right from the start, soaring us over cloudscapes and real-looking ice formations—all accompanied by Sigur Rós. And compared to the first film, the world, and its inhabitants, are fleshed out more. In one short and refreshingly natural conversation, Astrid actually becomes a real character, her relationship with Hiccup finally more than her being his reward for completing the first film’s plot. This scene sets the bar high, and the film meets it with richly developed characters, psychological complexity, and a few scenes which use silence and subtle body language in ways not often seen in an animated kids’ movie. Meets it until the end of the third act, that is. The third act jolted me out of the film, and proceeded to collapse, or outright ignore, everything that had been so meticulously built.

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A Review of the First 15 Minutes of ‘Joe’

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Joe (2013)
Directed by David Gordon Green
Screenplay by Gary Hawkins
Based on the novel by Larry Brown
117 min.

Spoiler-free.

I have a ’15-minute rule’ for whenever I watch a movie at home—if I’m not feeling it in the first 15 minutes, I turn it off and put something else on. This doesn’t always mean that I think the movie is bad—sometimes it just means I’m not in the mood for it, and as such, wouldn’t be able to judge it fairly. Some take issue with this rule, others see where I’m coming from, and that’s fine either way—it’s not something I’m particularly passionate about, it works for me, it’s whatever. Yesterday, for the first time, I felt actual guilt about it though.

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2014: A Good Year for Surrealist Movies

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If there’s one thing I love, it’s being lost, scared, and perplexed.

Okay, not really, but I do love me some surrealist movies. Any movie that forces me to constantly pay attention, actively find connections, and really work at interpreting pictures, sound, and dialogue is typically a good time for me.

A good surrealist movie always has a point. Sometimes the point is that it doesn’t have a point, but that can be enjoyable too—so long as it’s not just random nonsense, or completely abstract bullshit.

I went to see a talk with David Lynch at BAM a couple months back and he actually brought up this exact point, to my delight. He was responding to a question on why exactly he refuses to give any solid interpretation of his work. His answer was that he thought it was important for art to be analyzed from all angles—to give one ‘definitive’ interpretation is to stifle all other paths of growth. He went on to say that if the director’s intent is presented well then it will open up to deeper interpretation from other sources, meanings that even the author themselves may not have realized.

A good film is absolutely that, and a good surrealist film takes it a step further—its constant twists and turns eventually culminate to a beautiful larger picture. 

This year has been a pretty good one for new surrealist movies—we’re only half way through and I’ve already seen four new ones in theaters! Even better, I absolutely loved all of them:

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