Short Term 12

Short Term 12 is a drama about some twenty-somethings working at a shelter for teenage foster children. It focuses on a few of the kids and the problems they are trying to work around while the employees do their best to help them out. I found it to be a really well crafted story.

The story begins with a new guy getting oriented to the facility. During an introduction to the group, he makes the mistake of referring to the kids as "underprivileged" and they get very upset at him about that. To me, the new guy was there to represent the outsider's point of view like someone who really doesn't get the reality of the situation faced by the kids.

Multiple running plot lines help keep this going as we see that everybody has something they are coping with or trying to avoid. One worker is trying to hide her unwanted pregnancy. One kid is about to turn 18 and dreading what life may be like on the outside. A new girl is having trouble admitting whether or not her father abuses her.

While this all may sound like a bunch of sappy junk, it's actually an enjoyable movie. The characters are all presented realistically and with lots of little details to bring them to life. The subject matter is pretty rough but these things happen all the time. This one is worth seeing.

The Act of Killing

The Act of Killing is a documentary about some Indonesian death squad leaders who are asked to recreate their previous deeds under the guise of making a movie. It has been nominated for numerous awards, including an Oscar for Best Documentary.

Anwar Congo was a death squad leader who is responsible for killing hundreds, if not well over a thousand, suspect communists in Indonesia back in the 1960's. He revisits places where people were tortured and killed and describes it like an athlete might describe a memorable touchdown or home run. Congo's preferred method of killing was to wrap a wire around the victim's next and pull it tight.

This movie does little to explain the political/social situation from back then so it's not very useful for a history lesson. Instead, this is all about how people justify torture and murder. There's one part where a government official comes in to help them do a crowd scene (for the movie they are supposed to be making) where the death squad is rounding up communists from a village, including women and children. It's incredibly chaotic and scary, and the kids are crying real tears by the end of it. Even the government guy warns them that they need to be careful not to appear too harsh. It's nuts.

I can't say that I enjoyed this movie because that would be like saying I enjoy watching people get into car accidents. It's still a very interesting portrayal of officially sanctioned madness and the toll it takes not only on the victims but the perpetrators.

Snowpiercer

Snowpiercer is a post-apocalyptic science fiction movie starring Chris Evans and Ed Harris. It’s set in the future where an attack has frozen the planet and a small group of survivors are stuck on a train that has been traveling in a large loop for the past 17 years.

A caste system exists on the train where the people in the back live like prisoners of war while those toward the front live in veritable luxury. Evans lives in the rear of the train and raises up a resistance movement to fight their way to the front and take over. As you might imagine, the people in power take measures to stop them.

There’s a good bit of action in this one since the group has to punch, kick, and shoot their way from train car to car. Each one is decorated differently and serves a different purpose, since the whole train is one ecosystem designed to sustain life for a prolonged period.

This is the kind of movie that you can take at face value and enjoy the weirdness of it, or you can look at all the symbolism and underlying themes to really get something more from watching. I liked this one quite a lot.

Blue Ruin

Blue Ruin is a slow burn kind of thriller about a young man who takes it upon himself to avenge his murdered family after the killers get out of prison. The title of the movie comes from the old blue car that the guy lives in.

What I liked most about this story is that the main character is just an average guy. He’s not some ex special forces, retired cop/hitman, trained killer. Instead, he’s just some poor kid whose life was ruined by crime who then is forced to take up arms in order to protect the rest of his family.

Macon Blair gives a great performance as the hapless lead character. He pulls off revenge killings with the awkwardness of a teenager boy’s first time with a girl, and his obvious vulnerability works on many levels. You feel bad for the guy and want him to succeed.

As an added bonus, one of the villains is played by Eve Plumb. You’ll recognize her face and then realize it’s the same actress who played the original Jan Brady on The Brady Bunch.

All is Lost - What is this movie really about?

Spoiler Alert: This is not a movie review, but rather an analysis of the symbolism exhibited in the movie All is Lost. If you haven’t yet seen the movie, this analysis will detail many major aspects of the plot as well as give away the ending.

All is Lost is a movie starring Robert Redford as a man alone on a sailboat in the middle of the ocean, and through a series of disasters we watch as he struggles to survive on the open water. If taken at face value, it might be compared to a movie like Castaway where one person must be creative with resources in order to make it out of a deadly situation. If you wish to look a little deeper, you might say that it’s an allegory about a man preparing for the inevitability of death. Either way, it works.

My take on this movie is that it’s all meant to symbolize the way small businesses are constantly being overrun by large corporations. I’ll explain the many reasons why I reached this conclusion in the list below:

• Robert Redford's character represents the small business owner and the sailboat symbolizes his business.
• While he was sleeping, his sailboat gets struck by a Chinese shipping container. Given the difference in times on the other side of the world, China does business while we in America are sleeping.
• The shipping container also represents the way in which cheap foreign imports often make things even more difficult for small business.
• Redford's character is resourceful and he has the means and know-how to fix the hole in his boat. However, he spends so much time trying to patch that one problem that a storm catches up to him.
• The storm represents the current state of the economy, or even the business world in general.
• Once the storm hits, the sailboat (business) holds up for a little while, but ultimately takes on too much water and starts to sink.
• Redford's character is forced to downsize by transferring to the life raft. He scrounges what he can from the sailboat to take along with him, including a sextant.
• The sextant represents Redford's character relying on old school tried and true methods. It works for a little while.
• After getting into the raft, we start seeing a lot of underwater shots and at first a school of small fish can be seen following underneath.
• A short time later, some barracuda show up to eat the smaller fish. This is an obvious ploy on the adage about how "there's always a bigger fish" and is somewhat foreboding.
• A few large ships pass by Redford but he's so small on the water that they don't even notice him. This is meant to show how large corporations view small companies - or rather how they give them no notice at all.
• Sharks eventually show up to circle the life raft. These are meant to represent the banks and financial institutions, as demonstrated by how Redford's character is fishing and has the catch taken by a shark right before he can pull it in the boat.
• When Redford sets the raft on fire to signal the other boat, this could possibly be interpreted as a fire sale. The way that it burns in a large ring like a big zero also plays into this.
• At the very end, when Redford is rescued by the other boater, pay attention to the size of the craft. It's a very small boat, meaning that it was another small business owner that reached out to him. Businesses supporting other businesses is how small businesses survive. That's how I saw the ending.

What do you think? Am I onto something here or completely off base? The movie is available on Netflix and I highly recommend it, whether you enjoy it for the adventure on the water or choose to look deeper for other meanings behind the action on screen.

Halt and Catch Fire - Season 1

Halt and Catch Fire isn't on Netflix yet, but it probably will be since most of AMC's shows are on there. This debut season just finished up and I was quite enthused by it since the story is based on a computer company in the early 1980's.

Lee Pace stars as a Steve Jobs type who may or may not be a total psychopath. He's manipulative as hell but manages to force greatness from people even if it nearly destroys them. In some scenes, he has a chest full of scars and offers multiple explanations for how they got there while we still don't know the real truth. He's also willing to sleep with men or women to get what he wants. This guy is a mess, and he's leading up a group of techies to build what he considers to be not just the next big thing in computing, but the thing that gets us to the next big thing. He's trying to project that far ahead.

Scoot McNairy plays the Steve Wozniak here who is still trying to get over a previous failure while being coaxed into this wild project by Pace's character. He and his wife dive headfirst into things and it causes problems between them. Meanwhile, a hotshot young programmer (Mackenzie Davis) is adding a little punk rock to the mix with her unique way of doing most everything, including the coding of a brand new operating systems. It both helps and hurts that she's sleeping with the boss. This first season ends with them all at a Comdex computer convention where they get to show off their work alongside everyone from IBM to Apple, then we find out what they've really accomplished.

I do hope that AMC renews Halt and Catch Fire for at least one more season because I would like to see what direction it takes after what all they've done with this first season. I believe the writers get the subject matter well and it's not technically inept at any level while still being understandable to those who weren't around back in those days.

Update: Halt and Catch Fire Season 1 is now streaming on Netflix. The new season starts this summer on AMC!

Authors Anonymous

Authors Anonymous (2014) is a mock documentary about a group of writers who find themselves insanely jealous when one of their writing club members lands both a publishing deal and a movie deal. It pokes fun at the publishing industry as well as wannabe authors, and I enjoyed it though some of the jokes hit a little close to home.

What makes this movie watchable is the talent on screen, since the story isn't particularly memorable and it really goes for long stretches without enough funny parts. Kaley Cuoco (of Big Bang Theory) is the lead here and she's who gets the publishing/movie deal even though she's kind of a ditz. Chris Klein plays a fellow writer who may have waited too long to tell her how he really feels. The late Dennis Farina plays a Viet Nam vet who thinks he should be the next Tom Clancy, and he steals every scene he is in. Other actors include Dylan Walsh and Teri Polo, plus a cameo from Jonathan Banks, who is better known as Mike from Breaking Bad. Tricia Hefler (the blonde bombshell from Battlestar Galactica) also has a small role.

I liked this movie because I am a self published author and know exactly how these characters feel. I have also met some people somewhat like the characters here - the ones who want so badly to get published and be famous but would rather talk about it than really put in the work. In some ways, this was kind of a sad film given how the characters acted plus seeing Dennis Farina's last role was bittersweet because he was the liveliest of the bunch. I see this one as having a somewhat limited appeal due to the subject matter, but it's still worth checking out.