THE RAID - 2 Reviews by Ashley Kerner and Stephanie Garrison

Review by Ashley Kerner

A SWAT team attempts to take out the crime boss Tama who is holed up in an apartment building in which all of the inhabitants are ruled by him with unrelenting violence. The audience soon learns that the man in charge of the mission is corrupted by power and money. The SWAT team is found out and the inhabitants of the building pick the cops off and kill them one by one. The hero of the film is a young cop with a pregnant wife who is not corrupted by money. We soon learn that the hero’s brother is the crime boss’ headman. When the crime boss discovers his headman has helped a cop, he vows to make him suffer. The good cop finds his brother tied up and being beaten by the drug lord’s bloodthirsty bodyguard who prefers to kill using his hands not guns. The two brothers fight off the bodyguard, while the corrupt SWAT team leader searched for the crime boss. The crime boss laughingly tells the SWAT leader that he is an informant and that he was told to lead the mission as a death sentence. The SWAT leader kills the crime boss, then tries to kill himself, but he has run out of bullets. The good cop ties up the corrupt SWAT leader and escapes with the help of this brother. The two brothers part ways one as a cop and one to a life of crime.

On a scale of one to ten, this film would be a four. This film is more mainstream than independent because of the violence and the easy to follow plot. The violence in this film was outrageous and was included for the sake of violence, not to further the plot line. The plot line was simple; it gave the audience a clear picture of what characters were good and what characters were bad. Without the violence this film would have easily been only ten minutes long.

The mythic value of this film was the idealization of extreme violence. This film was so violent and so bloody and the plot was so simple any eight-year-old boy would have easily enjoyed this film. The main goal of this film was to show that the strongest and most violent fighter was always the winner.

Review by Stephanie Garrison

The Raid is an action-packed powerhouse of a film from beginning to end. It is a smart, exceptionally well-choreographed martial arts movie that you can’t take your eyes off of. The violence is substantial and very graphic, but it does not feel gratuitous or forced in anyway; the story almost calls for it. When viewing the film, one would find it hard to believe that it screened at the Sundance Film Festival, as it has many qualities of a typical mainstream action film, but at its core, The Raid stands alone as the best and one of the only indie-action films I’ve ever seen. The Raid is about an elite SWAT team on a mission to take down a ruthless drug lord named Tama who has taken control of a fifteen story apartment building, fully equipped with lethal henchmen ordered to kill any intruder on the premises in order to protect the boss. In an almost video game-like structure—starting, literally, from the lowest level and gradually ascending upwards to the “boss level”—The Raid is paced very well, and the action that takes place throughout the film is much needed as opposed to some mainstream action movies where some of the fight/action scenes seem like minutes of filler. In this sense, The Raid almost acts as a character-driven story, which is something we hardly ever see in an action film. The choices that each character makes directly affect what happens in the next scenes. Because of aspects like these, I would have to say that The Raid would fall right in the middle of the independent vs. mainstream film spectrum. It’s mainstream in the sense that it is clear that this will be a popular film for action lovers, and also in the sense that it is an action movie. When one thinks of independent, one doesn’t really see guns, fights, and gore, but The Raid does have many independent tendencies. As mentioned before, I would call this film a character-driven film, where the importance is on the character as opposed to the plot. We get to know the lead characters, and we see why they say the things they say, and do the things they do. We can see their motivation. As far as its mythic qualities, The Raid challenges the conventional/dominant American cultural myths. Firstly, the film is foreign, so there is absolutely no English whatsoever; the film doesn’t even reference America. Also, in American action films, a lot of emphasis is put on the explosion; Michael Bay is a good example of this idea. In the film, there is only one actual explosion, the rest of the actions scenes only involve guns, machetes and fists. Personally, I loved this movie from the moment it started, and it may have just shot straight to my top ten list.

2 Sundance Films - Reviewed by Ashley Kerner

About Face

Director: Timothy Greenfield-Sanders

This documentary shows several different interviews with famous aging models. The interviews discuss how the women got into the modeling business, the drug scene in which they were involved, their views on beauty as well as their views on cosmetic surgery and aging. When these women first began modeling being a model was a profession that was extremely looked down upon, one model’s mother thought being a model meant that she was a hooker. Some of the girls became models on purpose but many were just doing it as a summer job for extra cash. All of the models admitted that although they were just fifteen and sixteen at the time their careers first began they all suffered eating disorders, self-image issues as well as drug and alcohol abuse problems. During the interviews they all admitted that they knew many girls who fell to the drug and party scene and that they were lucky themselves to have been able to get out of the situations they were in. Some of the models shown were retired or working in other professions, these former models overwhelmingly were against plastic surgery and advocated beauty from within, while majority of the women who were still modeling had a nonchalant attitude towards cosmetic surgery many of whom had already had several procedures done at the time of the filming. The film ended with a group portrait of all of the former models.

On a scale of one to ten, this film would be a two. This film is more mainstream than independent because it pushes the value that cosmetic beauty, which is a topic often pushed by mainstream media, can lead to happiness. Even when a few of the models were stating that they were against plastic surgery, many of those models were later shown listing their favorite fashion designer and makeup products.

The mythic value this film supports is cosmetic beauty and consumerism of beauty products and procedures. This film emphasizes the importance of looking youthful because most of these women were forced to give up modeling after they reached the age of thirty and this film reinforces the myth that beauty and happiness can be bought with plastic surgery, the right makeup and fashionable clothes.

About the Pink Sky

Director: Keiichi Kobayashi; Screenwriter: Keiichi Kobayashi

This film is about a high school girl named Izumi. Izumi has a pessimistic view of life and spends her free time rating newspaper articles. She finds a wallet with 300,000 yen in it. The ID in the wallet says that it belongs to a rich boy at school whose father is a corrupt politician. Izumi lends some of the money to a poor old man who promises to pay her back when he gets a job. Izumi’s friends force her to return the wallet, but because of the missing money the wallet’s owner demands that the three girls help him write a newspaper of only good news for his friend who is sick in the hospital. Izumi discovers that this “friend” is actually the wallet owner’s gay lover and the articles she has been writing are now a newspaper for the entire hospital. The wallet owner fires the three girls and reveals that he has been making money off their articles, putting them under his own name. The poor old man gives back the money Izumi lent him and tells her that he now has a well paying job writing good news articles for the hospital paper. Izumi returns the money to the wallet owner to discover that his hospitalized boyfriend has died. Izumi brings herbs to be burned with the body that will create pink smoke.

On a scale of one to ten, this film would be a nine. This film is more independent than mainstream because the story line is not easy to follow. This film is seen through the eyes of a very eccentric girl who likes to do strange things, does not like to operate on the basis of traditional logic and who likes to become friends with strange people. Another independent aspect of this film was that it involves the lives of two gay children.

The mythic dimension this film portrays is that we live in a utopia. This film ended with a great message that although it is easy to look at the daily news and be pessimistic about life, if we look hard enough then we will see that everything around us is good, we just have to look at things from a different perspective.

FILLY BROWN - Review by Vinny Townsend

Filly Brown

Directed by Yousseff Delara and Michael D. Olmos

Directed in a way that will catch the attention of a broad range of viewers, Filly Brown succeeds, as an independent film that I imagine could become a main stream hit. In this film “Majo” aka Filly Brown, is an up and coming rap artist with talent that stems from her heart. Majo’s mother is a drug addict who continues getting in trouble even while in jail, slowly pulling Majo into her mess. As Majo catches the attention of a big time producer, she makes the decision to sell out on her friends in order to make enough money to pay her mother’s drug debt. Majo quickly runs into trouble as she makes it to the mainstream rap market. By the end we discover that there is nothing more important than friends and family, but this lesson is learned over a long and rocky journey. It is only when Majo digs deep into her heart to create music that reflects her true feelings, that she becomes successful in controlling her professional and personal life

I would rate this film a 6.5 on the independent scale. The story of a rapper making their way into the industry has never been presented like this before. For one thing, the rapper is a Latina female, contradicting many stereotypes about who we believe can become successful rappers. Another interesting aspect was that Majo’s mother was in jail rather than her father. In fact, Majo’s dad was a reformed gangster, and did everything he could to take care of his daughters. It seemed like this film stood apart from many gender and racial stereotypes that are typically presented in films.

Another aspect of the film that reflected its independent nature was the music included throughout the film. Of course, Filly Brown’s raps were unique. What was even better about these songs was that they were actually sung live by the actress as the film was shot. In addition to Filly’s rap songs, different genres of unique and popular music were included. “Dubstep”, an increasingly popular form of music in the underground was played in this film, demonstrating how the filmmakers were in touch with modern culture. These small details were what made this film such a unique experience.

I found the end of the film to be somewhat mainstream in the sense that it was a “happyish” ending. Majo never gives up on her mother and her entire family gets back in touch with the mom. The mom finally attempts to take steps to get off of drugs and while Majo visits her mom at the jail, she raps an emotional song about her family over the prison phone. Although the ending was a little bit corny, the Q and A afterwards was very touching. The actress who played Majo was cute and quirky, but I could tell she put her heart and soul into this role. Seeing the passion of those involved in making this film made me appreciate it even more.

CAIFF at Rheem Theater

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February 10-16. See you opening night!

http://caiff.org/index.asp

Review of the documentary Room 237

Room 237

Director: Rodney Archer

            As if you thought you were obsessive with certain films, meet director Rodney Archer who has a strange obsession with the 1980 film The Shining.  But when I say he is obsessed, that is actually an understatement.  His documentary titled Room 237 attacks the conspiracy theories that lie within this film.  Many believe that the director of The Shining, Stanley Kubrick, created this grotesque and creepy film well below the level of what he is capable of producing.  The film is a series of flashbacks of the film, scenes from other films, and voiceover interviews to help explain conspiracy theories involving government conspiracy, genocide, and history, with many pictures of Indians and other things that I am slightly confused about.

            On a scale from 1-10, 1 being ultra mainstream and 10 being ultra indie, I would rate this film a 9.  This 9 does not represent that same emotional pull and amazing story line that many ultra indie films exude.  I rate this film a 9 because I think it is so far away from the mainstream viewer’s interest.  I think cinematically, this film was very creative in using the voiceover interviews and using shots from all sorts of films to give humor to this review of such a dark film.  You should know that the director referred to himself through shots of Tom Cruise, but unfortunately, looked nothing like him in person.  Room 237 does however, give great criticism about a director who is so praised, but when his poor directing skills are pointed out within this film, we question if those things were on purpose or if Stanley Kubrick really had no clue.  The ability to include such arguments and criticism is something that I think many ultra indie films are known for, which makes this film worth seeing if you are looking to pull apart every detail of The Shining, frame by frame.

            This documentary challenges the mythical quality relating to history, the government, and good quality directing I would say.  I actually found many of the connections between The Shining and history quite comedic, especially when one of the voiceovers made brief connections to pictures on the walls of the way the carpet is designed.  The director backs the audience into these conspiracy theories, but since we never hear from Kubrick himself, we are left debating if whether or not any of these are actually true, which is another plus to the creativeness of this ultra indie documentary.

            Overall, this documentary will leave you questioning everything you saw in The Shining, but let me say, that you too must be very obsessed with this film to sit through all 104 minutes of analyzing frames down to the way the child plays with his toys.  Truly creative and cinematically intriguing, Room 237 proved itself in the New Frontier section of Sundance Film Festival 2012.

Film Reviews

As promised, I will post a few film reviews that I have done about some of the Sundance films that I and others were able to see at this year's festival.  Obviously, they are completely my opinion and I really encourage anyone who is looking to see a few independent films to watch a little bit of everything.  I had an eclectic mix of films which made my experience at the festival very rewarding!