Unforgettable Review

Don't do crazy-----Katherine Heigl as a bitter ex-wife to a hunky man (Geoff Stults) in Unforgettable
               Unforgettable is the newest in a long line of what I call the smutty thriller genre. It started in the 90s, with films like Fair Game and Single White Female and has seen a resurgence with When The Bough Breaks and The Boy Next Door among others. Of this genre, Single White Female is the best made of them and The Boy Next Door is the most fun (although how much of that was intentional is questionable.) However, I'm not here to compare movies (ignore the fact that I just did.) Unforgettable is pretty awful and yet...it could have been kinda, sorta fun but writers Christina Hodson and David Johnson and director Denise Di Novi are too lazy to make that much effort. They instead opt for  a thriller in which not much happens and then wimp out at the end by making even the throw down that the film has been leading up to insignificant. If you're going to lead up to this, at least make it count.

                      The film stars Rosario Dawson as Julia, a too-perfect blogger who is married to David (Geoff Stults, giving a performance so bland that it literally took the taste out of my mouth as I was watching it.) However, Julia meets Tessa (Katherine Heigl,) David's ex who is evil, but not evil enough to make it threatening nor comical. In fact, the movie screws up being fun bad by introducing a comically evil character in Julia's ex (Simon Kassianides) and then showing him only in brief cutaways and one scene towards the end. Kassianides's performance, mixed with the terribly undercooked screenplay, all but turn this guy into a Looney Tunes villain but he's not on screen long enough to be that funny and when he is fully introduced, the scene is  in such poor taste that it makes it hard to even laugh at him.

                        This is not to mention that the film is told in flashback, taking away any suspense from an already completely predictable story. Seriously....giving away how this all transpired in the opening scene would get someone a failing grade in a college level screenwriting class.

                         This doesn't even begin to bring up the fact that plot elements are introduced that make no sense and amount to nothing. At one point, Lily, David and Tessa's daughter, is talking to a mysterious man at a market. This is brought up later by having Julia go "who was that man you were talking to at the market?" and Lily replying "I don't know." Why even have that scene if you're not going to do anything with it?

                          Then there's Cheryl Ladd as Tessa's equally uptight, cruel mother. Ladd is at least attempting to give a fun, campy performance but the script gives her nothing to do. She's mean but why and what significance should that serve? The only thing I can think of is to give Tessa some sprinkling of sympathy but then that takes away from the fun of watching this woman ruin her ex's new lover's life. Seriously...there's such a disconnect between the actors, the screenwriters and the directors that it makes everything jarring. Heigl feels like she studied the work of someone like Bette Davis without understanding what made her performances great, Dawson seems to think she's in a Douglas Sirk melodrama, Stults isn't doing anything, Di Novi is directing this like a made for TV Christmas drama, Hodson and Johnson seem to be writing a horror film and that's not even to mention Whitney Cummings as Julia's trustworthy, wise cracking friend who gets not one funny line of dialogue, but plenty of attempts at them.

                               Yet, at the end of the day, Unforgettable sets itself up for a sequel as if that will ever happen. There's no reason to see this film. If you're going to make a film with this ludicrous a premise, run with it and have fun. If you're going to direct any film, work with your actors in a way that makes sense. If you're going to bring up plot elements, make them worthwhile. Most of all, don't be this mind numbingly boring.
(1/2 out of 5 Stars, The film is rated R for sexual content, violence, some language and brief partial nudity.)

The Lost City Of Z Review

Finders keepers-----Charlie Hunnan as Percy Fawcett, an explorer who claims to have found a hidden civilization in The Lost City Of Z
                            Love him or hate him, we should all feel appreciative that someone like James Gray exists in the world. While I haven't loved all of his films (I found We Own The Night pretentious and The Immigrant dull,) I admire him greatly and am happy that he is making them. He's keeping that old fashioned sensibility alive. Think David Lean mixed with John Ford with a dash of Alfred Hitchcock thrown in for good measure. He takes his time, he builds characters, his visuals are minimal but effective and he even manages to study his actors' faces through their every single move. It's hard to deny these traits have been lost in the age of Michael Bay and even more talented directors like Ben Wheatley and James Wan, all of whom tend to throw a lot at the screen in an effort to keep the audience engaged.

                                Gray's latest film, The Lost City Of Z, based on the famous/infamous exploration of Percy Fawcett and his proposal that there may be civilizations we don't even know about living among us, will undoubtedly bore many people and even frustrate a lot in its deliberate pace and runtime that sometimes seems superfluous but is needed to truly tell the story in its full effect. Others like myself, however, will find this story of a man who will risk everything to prove what he knew he witnessed a fascinating character study and will appreciate Charlie Hunnan's lead performance, which feels so authentic that I forgot I was watching that guy from "Sons Of Anarchy" simply play this explorer.

                                   The film follows Fawcett, who seems like a fish out of water everywhere he goes. That is, until he gets assigned to explore the Amazon River with Henry Costin (Robert Pattinson, near unrecognizable under pounds of facial hair and continuing to prove that he's an excellent actor who just once got stuck with a bad role.) On one of his journeys, Fawcett discovers what he claims is Zed, a hidden city full of people who make up their own civilization. Upon returning, he tries to convince his colleagues that he's not crazy but they laugh him out of the room, much to the chagrin of his dedicated wife Nina (Sienna Miller, also excellent.) This prompts Fawcett to become absolutely obsessed with proving the truth of what he saw.

                                       Gray never once uses an in your face shot, instead opting, as he often does, for minimal shots that say everything they need to and then some. This is a fantastic talent working behind the camera, knowing exactly what he needs and doesn't need. Toward the end of the film, Tom Holland shows up as Jack, Percy and Nina's son who demands that he and pop go explore together and this section of the film provides one of the most beautiful shots I can remember seeing in a film for quite some time.

                                          As well, the script by Gray (based on a book by David Grann) makes every single character feel authentic and relatable. The desire of Fawcett to get to the heart of the matter and prove everyone right is inherently relatable as is Henry's desire to eventually just stay out of it. These are not cardboard cut outs...they are real people who it is very easy to feel for. This is also due to the performance. Hunnan, Pattinson, Miller and Holland are all magnificent, opting to give depth to these characters rather than play them in a more straightforward manner.

                                        Of course, there are some problems with the film. The journey eventually loses steam as it becomes clearer what's going on, which makes the conclusion potentially unsatisfying for some, although I found it to be completely worthwhile. Also, there are a few times where the pace doesn't feel so much deliberate as just poorly done but those are fairly brief moments.

                                         For the most part, The Lost City Of Z works as both an interesting character study of obsession and what it drives people to do as well as a suspenseful, Hitchcockesque thriller about what could or could not be a completely misguided effort and how that effort could end up bringing more than you were hoping for. To quote Greg Kihn---"They don't write 'em like that anymore."
(4 out of 5 Stars, The film is rated PG-13 for violence, disturbing images, brief strong language and some nudity.)

The Blackcoat's Daughter Review

There's evil in that school---Kiernan Shipka as a vicious boarding school student in The Blackcoat's Daughter
               The Blackcoat's Daughter is a new horror film directed by Oz Perkins, son of Norman Bates portrayer Anthony Perkins. Simply based on the household he grew up in, it would seem logical to expect Oz to know a little more about horror than he seems to. He understands atmosphere---that's for sure, but not how to apply it. There is also the best use of sound design I can think of in recent memory, never mind the fact that it's a few seconds of a slow, tedious film. Oz also seems to understand actors, which would make sense. His five leads are all incredibly dedicated to the material they're working with, even Lauren Holly, who gets practically nothing to do but disagree with James Remar, here playing her husband.

                 The story----Kat (Kiernan Shipka) is a boarding school student whose parents leave her to fend for herself at the school over break. Seeing as Kat has some pretty clear issues, the head of the school requests that Rose (Lucy Boynton,) who accidentally informed her parents not to come until Friday, look after her. The only problem is that Rose is a troublemaker and doesn't give a damn about Kat. Oh, also there are spooky things happening in the school. In a whole other section of the movie, Joan (Emma Roberts) is a stranded teen. A couple (Remar and Holly) who are heading the same way as her decide to give her a ride and provide her with a hotel room. Never mind the story, though, because that's the very, very, very simplified version of it and it actually doesn't make any sense whatsoever as it plays out.

                  Writer-director Perkins surrounds his movie with all the creepy atmosphere that's needed to make a solid horror film. Meanwhile, however, he seems to forget that characters worth caring about and a story to get invested in are also completely necessary to be effective. If there's nothing to follow along with and no character who I can identify with, there's not much to hold my interest. Scene after scene, I wanted to lean over to someone and ask "What's going on here? What is this supposed to mean?" There's nothing significant about any of this. Yes, it looks nice and it has creepy sounds, but that means absolutely nothing when I'm left checking my watch every few minutes.

                   The story builds to a conclusion that I suppose is meant to be a big, breath taking reveal. However, Perkins makes the fatal mistake of dropping not so subtle hints into the film. Anyone who was even halfway paying attention will have already guessed what the big twist is and will have already stopped caring.

                      Perkins clearly has some talent behind the camera. He's one of those guys who you've seen in a movie if you've watched a movie from the past couple of decades. He has learned the basics of how to make a film. Now he just has to find the rhythm to go along with it and maybe hire someone else to write his screenplay.
(2 out of 5 Stars, The film is rated R for brutal bloody violence and brief strong language)