Bloodline

I went into Netflix's latest new series, Bloodline, without having read anything about it. A friend had recommended it, so I decided to avoid all spoilers and go in blindly. This turned out to be an excellent slow burn kind of family drama about a black sheep who brings much trouble to this otherwise picture perfect group.

This show was created by brothers Glenn and Todd Kessler, who previously did the show Damages while Todd also worked on The Sopranos. They take their time fleshing out the characters and thoroughly laying out all the plot details, so much that you will come to sympathize with the villain as much as you will the rest. It's all set in the beautiful Florida keys.

Ben Mendelsohn is mesmerizing as the sociopath brother, Danny, who comes home and starts causing problems from day one. I wouldn't be surprised to see him earn an Emmy for his role here. His older brother, played by Kyle Chandler, is the local sheriff and their sister, played by Linda Cardellini, is a lawyer. Sam Shepherd and Sissy Spacek play the parents, and multiple Tony winner Norbert Leo Butz plays the younger brother. They are all part of a wealthy, well-known and well-respected family who don't need all these dark secrets coming to light.

As things play out, you will learn of their complicated relationships all stemming from the death of a young sister. Danny was blamed though the truth of what happened isn't revealed until the later part of the series. More complications will arise and pretty soon everyone is crossing moral and legal lines. As Chandler's character says toward the end of an early episode, "We're not bad people, but we did a bad thing." If you want to find out what they did, check out this great new show on Netflix.

V/H/S: Viral

The first two V/H/S movies were wonderful collections of short horror stories built around a creepy premise where some folks find a cache of old VHS tapes depicting awful happenings. This third movie fails in comparison to everything that made the first two great. It's shorter than before and the individual stories just aren't as good.

One of the stories is about a small-time magician who winds up with a cursed cloak that grants him amazing powers but he has to feed it people to keep it up. That's it - a magician who kills people by draping his cloak over them while they sleep. In another that had more potential than it delivered, a man develops an inter-dimensional door in his house and then travels to the other side and finds a nightmarish world. It has some unfortunately awful and cheap-looking effects that make it laughable. Another story has a bunch of punk kids go down into Mexico to skateboard and they stumble across a Satanic ritual that results in an overlong series of attacks while they run away. The whole thing is encapsulated in a story about an van running amok in the city.

The premise of these films is that they fit into the "found footage" category of movie, but here there are numerous violations of this genre. Far too many cameras are used and there's too much editing, which defeats the whole purpose. This movie only offers a couple of tense moments whereas the two previous films were filled with them.

Don't bother with V/H/S: Viral even if you liked the first two movies in the series. It really doesn't have anything that stands out as being worth your time.

Kids for Cash (2013)

Kids for Cash is an infuriating documentary about a crooked judge who was getting kickbacks from a privately owned for-profit juvenile detention center that he helped to create with some business partners. This judge would put kids away from months or even years for the most trivial offenses because he got paid for each one he sent up. He ruined hundreds of lives, pocketed a couple of million dollars doing so, then on ton top of all that he didn't even declare the extra income so they got him for tax evasion, too.

What makes this documentary worth seeing is that the judge actually volunteered to appear in it and try to tell his side of the story. This was a guy who got re-elected on platforms of zero tolerance and the harshest of penalties who then goes on camera and hopes for some leniency and admits he made a mistake. He also thinks he did a lot of those kids a favor. Watching him try to justify his actions will make you wish you can punch him right through your screen.

No doubt this film will make you angry, but it's worth seeing because it demonstrates what can happen when people take a hardline approach to things. It also interviews some of the kids and their parents so it presents all sides fairly and equally. I'm glad this guy got busted, but it took several years and lots of destroyed futures before it happened.

A Night in Old Mexico

A Night in Old Mexico stars Robert Duvall as a widowed man who is about to lose his family ranch to the bank and he's on the verge of suicide. When his grandson shows up out of the blue, the two decide to head down into Mexico for a night of "singing, dancing, and women" as a way of casting off their problems.

Meanwhile, a drug deal in town goes bad and two drifters wind up hitchhiking along with Duvall and grandson. Some things get more complicated when a Mexican hitman stars tailing them around town, and before long the two cowboys don't realize how much trouble they are in.

Throw in a beautiful singer they picked up from a bar, a mysterious drug cartel guy who wants his loot back, plus lots of cold cervezas, and you get a recipe for one wild night.

It's hard to believe Robert Duvall is 80+ years old because he sure doesn't act like it in this movie. I enjoyed this one. It's from the same screenwriter as Legends of the Fall and The Perfect Storm.

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.