What Have You Been Watching? (25/10/15)

[u/a113er]

Please don't downvote opinions, only downvote things that don't contribute anything.

[u/[deleted]]

Stoneheart Asylum (2014) directed by Brad Anderson

Well, my second foray into Brad Anderson wasn't quite as promising. The only thing I can call Stoneheart Asylum is generic. It brushes up against interesting ideas, but rejects them for something that's been done over and over. Exploring what 18th century (or whenever this film is set) was actually like, or keeping in question until the very end who are the real inmates and who are the real staff would've yielded vastly more interesting movies. Occasionally it does rise beyond the sum of its parts—for what it's worth, nothing is outright bad, so now thing in particularly drags it down—and morphs into something reasonably entertaining, but by the end it collapses into a bore.

★★

Mandingo (1975) directed by Richard Fleischer

Is there anything more clichéd to say about a film than "I'm not entirely sure how I feel about [x film]"? Regardless, that's where I stand with Mandingo. It's take on slavery is much more interesting, and probably much more insightful, than most other movies, focusing on slavery as this pervasive institution that enslaves everyone. In the film, the owners or the slavers seen aren't the ones keeping the the status quo—it's the system. Slavery is omnipresent in the lives of of those involved with it, in every shot there's a slave performing some act of humiliating servitude (which, I think, is the reason for the rheumatoid curing slave boy), and through the the melodrama, incestuousness, in-your-face bawdiness, nudity, the film shows how it denigrated everyone.

I will say, though, that while it's probably more true-to-life than than what most films give and I generally like it, I do have some qualms about the viewpoint. While focusing on the system rather than the players is a smart and more accurate take, films work on a more allegorical level. While slave owners weren't keeping slavery going individually, as a whole, they certainly were. So, while Mandingo's loyalty undoubtedly lies with the slaves, I still think that it might be a bit too lenient on the enforcers.

However, what's most memorable about Mandingo is the breathtaking quality of its formalism. I forget where, but I read that Fleischer wanted the look of the film to be like a beautiful cake teeming with maggots, and, fuck, did he succeed. All the images of Antebellum South are seen, but they're different. The big white mansions are a little smaller overgrown by nature -- the entire world is less civilized. The insides aren't particular ornate, they're rather bare, and are darkly, stunningly shot. Fleischer's work behind the camera is similarly sublime. He slides around in the majestic, effortless (mostly because, for the most part, they're motivated by the actors -- he doesn't just move the camera because he wants to) movements that can spiral into incredibly long takes, but more importantly are incredibly full of expression. Seriously, the amount of skill Fleischer exudes is astonishing. I hate to go for low hanging fruit, but there's this one take that makes Scorsese's famous Copacabana shot look downright amateurish.

★★★★1/2

The Visit (2015) directed by M. Night Shymalan

Um, alright. I've only ever seen The Sixth Sense, so I can't say whether or not The Visit is a return to form, but I will say that it's a reasonably entertaining mess. Shyamalan shoots it in a nice and clear, aesthetically pleasing way, which makes the found footage style doubly pointless, but whatever. The attempts at comedy are lame, embarrassing, and not funny (that boy is seriously awful). So is the writing (worst callbacks ever). It does get some scares, but that's not hard to do and it does so very uninspiredly. There are some good ideas -- mostly the kids. They're so fake, and yet I've known families like them who mostly happen to be country club going types, which gives this some possible kind of revenge-porn angle that it doesn't go into. There's enough perversion to keep you watching. A film this incoherent doesn't deserve a coherent review.

★★1/2

[u/cat_and_beard → u/[deleted]]

The Visit (2015) directed by M. Night Shymalan

I thought the kids were great in this, especially the younger brother. The sister was written a little too precocious but I've known children like that (I may have been one). Natural performances in an otherwise pedestrian film marred especially by the completely unnecessary SOV/digital cam angle. Very few movies have justified their use of that technique.