The Beasts of the Southern Wild

This summer has been packed with box office hits (The Dark Knight Rises) and art house favorites (Moonrise Kingdom). However, one film stands out as not only the best film of the summer, but one of the top films of the year, The Beasts of the Southern Wild. Based on Lucy Alibar’s play “Juicy and Delicious”, Hushpuppy is a six-year old girl trying to survive in the squalor of her Delta, post-Katrina, home by attempting to find her mother, while her father, Wink, is dying of heart failure. Despite his alcoholism and embittered attitude, Wink teaches his daughter how to become independent by living off the land and water.                                                                          

 Like Mike Nichols and Sam Mendes, Benh Zeitlin has created a directorial debut that is sure to be a modern masterpiece as time moves on. Zeitlin managed to create a dark and beautiful film by mixing the cinema verite style of John Cassavetes while honing in on Hushpuppy’s nightmarish/wide-eyed imagination that mirrors the work of Terry Gilliam. Zeitlin’s guerrilla styled filmmaking is complimented by his own musical score with its suspenseful pizzicato passages and Appalachian-styled sequences that echo T-Bone Burnett’s Southern-infused film scores from Crazy Heart and O Brother, Where Art Thou?

                

In addition to the incredible filmmaking is an incredible cast of unknowns, who deliver astonishing performances from start to finish. Quvenzhané Wallis is awe-inspiring as the young, tenacious Hushpuppy. Only six-years old, Wallis delivers a moving performance of shifting from childhood to adulthood through pain and hope. New Orleans bakery owner, Dwight Henry, is incredible as the stubborn and sickly patriarch who manages to teach Hushpuppy the importance of standing strong in a sorrowful world through love as tough as nails.

                 

The Dark Knight Rises might have been explosive with its quarter of a billion dollar budget, but with a cast of unknowns and a budget under $2 million, The Beasts of the Southern Wild is proof positive that you don’t need to be swayed by dazzling special effects and star power to get a profound response; you can easily be moved to tears with a heartfelt and harrowing tale, such as this film, that will leave you speechless when the credits roll.      

Four out of Four Stars

The Dark Knight Rises

The Dark Knight Rises, the third and final chapter in the Christopher Nolan-directed trilogy, has risen by succeeding in delivering an exhilarating mix of fast-paced action that does service to the DC Comics, yet falters when Christopher Nolan tries to tie all the loose knots from the first two Batman films under his direction.  As gifted as a director and writer Nolan is, it seems that the mix of branching off into philosophical/political commentary within the confines of a straightforward superhero film has made this film, like his previous two, fall through the cracks. Having said that, The Dark Knight Rises stands out as the best film in the trilogy.                                                                                                                                                                   
Eight years after the death of Harvey “Two-Face” Dent, Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) lives as a billionaire recluse in similar respects to Howard Hughes after being the patsy involved in Dent’s death. Wayne goes back into the role of Batman after the muzzled behemoth, Bane (Tom Hardy), plans to destroy Gotham City and its inhabitants after collaborating with the burglar beauty, Selina Kyle, a.k.a. Catwoman (Anne Hathaway).  Meanwhile, Commissioner Gordon (Gary Oldman) battles the internal pain he suffered in the previous film, while mentoring Blake (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), a young police officer who is part of a dying breed of honest members of law enforcement.                                                    

Not to give too much away, the film blends together the current events of discontent, such as the financial crisis of 2008 and the Occupy Wall St. movement, with overarching perspectives over society being plunged into a dystopian nightmare that mirrors that of the prophetic words of Karl Marx and Anthony Burgess. At the center of the philosophical hedge maze is Nietzsche’s rhetoric made manifest, (i.e. “staring into the abyss”, “Humanity is a tightrope tied between animal and superhuman”) through the prison system that echoes a similar visual interpretation from Midnight Express. As deep and prophetic as it sounds, Nolan’s philosophical smorgasbord is overshadowed by the instant gratification of explosions, one-liners, and fight sequences that seem like shot to shot remakes of Scorsese’s Gangs of New York and Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin, without the gore and propaganda of the latter film.                                                                                                                                                   

The silver linings in the distorted clouds are the performances delivered by a superb cast. Christian Bale goes through the gauntlet of physical and emotional pain as the embittered Bruce Wayne. Tom Hardy may not size up to the flamboyance of Heath Ledger when he played the Joker, but his performance as Bane is dark, yet campy, as his voice sounds like a muzzled Sean Connery. Anne Hathaway is zesty and riveting as Catwoman, as she stands conflicted in her philosophical principles of the capitalist class system. Fresh from playing exiled spy in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, Gary Oldman goes back into the role of Commissioner Gordon with sheer energy combined with the subtlety of his Oscar-nominated role as George Smiley. Rounding off the cast is a sharp-tonged Marion Cotillard, an always reliable Morgan Freeman, and Michael Caine giving an emotionally stirring performance as Batman’s right-hand man, Alfred.                                                                   


Despite the conflicted loose ends to plot points and Nolan trying to throw everything but the kitchen sink, The Dark Knight Rises is a satisfying end to Nolan’s three-part symphony to Bob Kane’s comic book series; it may feel compacted by having everything shoved into a two hour and forty minute time frame, yet it still holds out as an entertaining blockbuster coated around a philosophical bubble.        

3 out of 4 Stars

Darkness Over Aurora

I remember asking my high school history teacher about his views over the release of United 93, and if it were "too soon" for audiences to digest the horrific acts of violence witnessed by the world on September 11th. He responded by saying that film-goers don't like to be challenged by reliving events of such tragedy; if anything, films are an escape from the harsh glimpses of reality. Reality and tragedy combined this past Friday when James Holmes, a 24-year-old University of Colorado graduate student, threw smoke grenades into an Aurora, CO movie theater and fired an automatic weapon killing 12 people and wounding several others during the midnight showing of The Dark Knight Rises.
      
As theories and speculations have erupted, and continue to be spouted, by pundits and specialists in the last 48 hours over the safety of going to the movies, it is necessary to remember the lives of those lost, as well as those who were physically and mentally wounded by the senseless acts of violence. Then again, all acts of violence are senseless. Despite what happened in Aurora, no one should have to fear for their life when all one wants to do is bask in the comforting glow of the movie screen and enjoy their favorite films either by themselves, their family and friends.