Flight ★★★★

A Journey Into The Complicated Life of an Alcoholic

Written by Matt Giles
Edited by Erin Accomando

Robert Zemeckis is a director who has basically been forgotten for the last decade. After directing two very different but equally entertaining films in 2000 (What Lies Beneath and Cast Away), he moved away from live-action entirely and as a result fell out of favor with audiences and critics alike. Happily, Zemeckis has returned to live-action for at least one movie with Flight, a terrific film starring Denzel Washington as an airline pilot struggling with alcoholism.

In the film's opening scene, we're immediately reminded of what Zemeckis can bring to a project. He shoots most of the movie either in close-up or medium shots, creating a very claustrophobic atmosphere, especially in the scenes where Washington's character, Whip Whitaker, chooses drinking over sobriety. Zemeckis uses this same tactic for the plane crash sequence, using tight shots and the point-of-view perspective to truly make us feel as though we're with the passengers on that flight. It's both discomforting and powerful, achieving that gut reaction many of us felt when watching the plane crash in Cast Away.

What's brilliant on Zemeckis' part is that we feel the same sensation (that weightless, stomach-in-your-chest feeling that anyone who has experienced turbulence on an airplane knows about) every time Whip is near a bottle of alcohol. It's not knowing what he'll do next that cripples us, making it hard to watch when Whip can't control himself. Yet Whip, despite being deeply flawed and very unlikeable at times, is a character you root for, largely due to Washington's performance and his direction under Zemeckis. We feel the suspense because we feel for Whip, a trick that not just any actor or director could pull off.

The most rewarding aspect that many of Zemeckis' projects offer is his close attention to character. We all remember Marty McFly and Doc Brown, and can easily recite the musings of Forrest Gump, courtesy of Zemeckis' knack for developing rich characters. Here, Whip is just as memorable because of his struggles, rather than the quirkiness that defined the aforementioned characters. In other words, Zemeckis and Washington both know how to bring a character to life, instead of just another guy in a movie. We shouldn't like Whip, but we do.

He's a guy who saves the lives of close to one hundred passengers on a doomed flight out of Orlando, yet he uses his new-found heroism as just another excuse to drink. He's enabled by his drug-dealing best friend, Harling Mays (John Goodman, who oddly felt a little out of place in the film), and his bad habits are ignored by both his co-pilot (Brian Geraghty) and flight attendant, Margaret (Tamara Tunie). He's estranged from his wife and son, and his friend-with-benefits, Katerina (Nadine Velazquez), an alcoholic and drug abuser, dies during the plane crash saving a young boy's life. To put it simply, Whip has nothing and is going nowhere really fast.

We find hope for Whip, unexpectedly so, in a young woman named Nicole (Kelly Reilly), who has a heroin addiction and almost dies from an overdose. Her story runs parallel to Whip's, her overdose occurring roughly the same time the plane crashes. The two of them meet in the hospital and instantly bond, though for different reasons. Whip sees a similarly damaged soul and uses her as yet another excuse to drink. Meanwhile, Nicole recognizes her problem and actively tries to build a better life for herself. Upon witnessing Whip's abuse of alcohol, she tries to help him, becoming the mirror held up to Whip's face; the image of the person he could be if he admitted to his addiction.

It's fascinating that Zemeckis and Washington don't shy away from the darkness of the story; they relish in it. There are many uncomfortable moments, scenes of heartbreak and betrayal, and somehow by the time the credits roll, there's a sense of hope and relief. This has been a major criticism of the film, it's "happy ending" somehow feels unearned to many critics. I find the ending to be peaceful rather than happy, dark enough to match with the tone the film establishes in its opening.

Flight is the perfect marriage of an actor and director working together to create a great movie and a powerful character. I, for one, am glad to see that Zemeckis has not lost his touch.

Cloud Atlas ★★

It's All Relative 

Written by Matt Giles

Edited by Erin Accomando

Some of the best science fiction is not without its flaws. Star Trek had its fair share of bad episodes ("Spock's Brain", anyone?) and bad movies (Star Trek V: The Final Frontier), as did The X-Files, Battlestar Galactica, and yes, Lost. Despite these missed opportunities, we remember these shows fondly (some more than others) and embrace the ideas and unique style that each of these shows added to the genre. The same cannot be said for Cloud Atlas, the epic science fiction odyssey rife with ideas and riddled with missed opportunities.

To understand the film, it's best to understand how it views time. It is not linear, as we all believe, but rather, vertical, or as I like to see it, circular. In other words, events that happened in our past and future are occurring parallel to what is happening now. The directors of the film, Lana & Andy Wachowski and Tom Tykwer, weave six stories together all at once to show us that all of these separate events are happening simultaneously, with each of the characters' choices impacting their past and future. The key players in each of these stories are the ones who have a birthmark resembling a comet, as they are the ones whose actions will dictate whether the next one hundred years will be peaceful or erupt in chaos.

The actors playing different characters in each story include Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Jim Broadbent, Hugo Weaving, Jim Sturgess, Doona Bae, Susan Sarandon and Hugh Grant, all of whom do great work despite the execution on the part of the directors. The makeup and some of the accents (especially in futuristic story that features Hanks and Berry prominently) are too distracting, so much so that you begin to wonder if The Wachowskis and Tykwer didn't have enough faith in the abilities of the actors. I get it, reincarnation means sometimes the same soul inhabits a body looking entirely different than the prior body, but honestly, a cast like this deserves better.

For a film as grand as Cloud Atlas, the directors seem hard-pressed to find content that adequately fills the time. For much its three-hours the directors stretch each story (which could have been about ten to twenty minutes a piece) at the expense of the film. The cutting from one story to the next becomes jarring, taking the viewer out of the experience. It doesn't work, nor does the film need to be as long as it is. 

If you want a great movie that deals with life, death, time, space, and reincarnation, see 2001: A Space Odyssey. If you want a more Earthbound version of those ideas, see The Tree of Life. If you want a film that has many actors you love doing their best to elevate material unworthy of their talents, Cloud Atlas fits that description. But if you desire truly great science fiction, crack open a beer and watch some old Star Trek episodes. Even the bad ones are better than Cloud Atlas. 

Paranormal Activity 4 ★½

A Weak Entry To An Otherwise Successful Franchise

Written by Matt Giles
Edited by Erin Accomando

I'm a genuine fan of the Paranormal Activity series. There, I said it. The first film changed the approach to making horror movies with its simplicity and inventiveness, ushering in many lesser rip-offs and some worthy sequels. Of the now four films that total the series, I find myself favoring the odd-numbered ones over the evens. Paranormal Activity introduced us to Katie (Katie Featherston), her back-story, and the unseen monster known only as Toby. Paranormal Activity 3 remains the most brutal of the chapters, a prequel to the first two films that explains how everything started - a reveal that includes a cult of witches and demons, evil grandmas, and two very dead parents.

Paranormal Activity 4 brings us to the present, taking place five years after the events of the first two films and, as a result, is a direct sequel to Paranormal Activity 2. When we last saw Katie, she had murdered her boyfriend, her sister, and her brother-in-law, all in an effort to capture her sister's son, Hunter. As the firstborn son of Katie's lineage, he's important to the cult and to Toby, for reasons that Paranormal Activity 4, sadly, does not reveal. What it does is tell us what happened to Katie and Hunter after the events of the first two films, and it does so in a way many will not be suspecting. It also gives us the scares we're now accustomed to seeing while still using interesting techniques to achieve those moments - the second film introduced multiple cameras around the house, the third used the pivoting camera in the kitchen to great effect - this time using webcams and a Kinect that reveal figures in the background or one's that are otherwise invisible.

Where the film succeeds in technical creativity, it fails in story. There's nothing that makes us excited for what comes next, a strength that part three had going for it. It feels more like a sequel made only for commercial reasons, giving us the basic plot points we've come to expect, uninterested in adding the unexpected. Instead of adults, or little girls, we get Alex (Kathryn Newton), the (roughly) fourteen-year-old protagonist suspicious of the new guest in her parents home, Robbie (Brady Allen). As creepy kids go, he's up there with Samara and Damien, and to his credit I was especially frightened by his delivery of a certain foreboding line during the middle of the film, but he and Alex are two minor highlights of a bad movie.

The series seems as though it's headed down the path of asking more questions than it feels like answering, which is a shame for a group of films that could have a potential if the right story is generated. The first film could have stood by itself as a great horror film; it didn't need sequels. Paranormal Activity 3 brought some life into the storyline after the average Paranormal Activity 2, making the possibilities endless in the next chapter. Paranormal Activity 4 is a major disappointment and doesn't give me much hope for the inevitable sequel. I guess we'll find out next year.

Sinister ★★½

Cheap Thrills And Prolonged Mysteries Do Not Equal Genuine Scares

Written by Matt Giles
Edited by Erin Accomando

For a film that's been labeled "one of the scariest movies of the year," Sinister is surprisingly bland, offering a few jolting moments and some twisted home movies, making it a major disappointment especially during the month of Halloween.

Ethan Hawke plays Ellison Oswalt, a true-crime writer with a reputation for aggravating local police officers in his efforts to solve cases. He's moved his wife, Tracy, (Juliet Rylance) and two children, Trevor and Ashley (Michael Hall D'Addario and Clare Foley), into a house where every member of a family except a little girl named Stephanie was killed. (Sinister's opening Super 8 movie reveals that the family was hung from a tree, with an unseen figure causing their demise.) And because lying to one's wife is always a good idea, Ellison hides this minor detail from Tracy. As Ellison assembles the pieces of this tragedy - photos, crime reports and the like - he becomes increasingly obsessed with trying to find Stephanie. He hears noises coming from the attic, which eventually reveals a box full of Super 8 movies, each of them portraying another slaughter of another unlucky family. A child is missing from each family, leading to a pattern among all of the murders, adding to Ellison's disturbing desire to solve all of these cases at the expense of alienating his family.

The best parts of Sinister are these Super 8 snuff movies, inventive in their style, hauntingly disturbing, and well made. What takes away from the film is that it tries to be frightening when it's actually more interesting as a mystery. There are parts of the movie that drag, courtesy of screenwriters C. Robert Cargill and Scott Derrickson relishing in keeping the mystery going as long as they can, and the film suffers for it. Maybe it's because of the marketing and the opinions I heard from friends and family members saying that Sinister was terrifying, I'll grant you that. But in looking at the movie for what it is, it's just too slow and not at all scary.

The intriguing aspect to it, however, is its portrait of a writer struggling to remain relevant. Sinister gives us as surprisingly detailed look into Ellison's life of solving mysteries. Its success is in showing us that Ellison is quite good at his job, and if anyone can solve what has happened to these children, it's him. There are plenty of movies out there about writers and their process, but I think Sinister offers something new in it's portrayal of a writer's obsession, and how difficult it is to let go of that obsession even after a crime is solved. Hawke does an admirable job conveying that struggle, making him a rarity of typical horror films - a lead character we actually root for.

The other minor detail that Sinister has going for it is the two scenes that feature Vincent D'Onofrio as Professor Jonas, the expert in the occult who helps Ellison with his plight. If ever a film needs exposition, especially dealing with pagan deities, D'Onofrio is the man for the job. He shows up late in the story, but gives the film the juice it needs to finally wrap up. Too bad he's not enough to save the film from its own wearisome mystery.