The Mountain Between Us Movie Review

The Mountain Between Us (2017)

Buy The Mountain Between Us on Amazon Video // Buy the novel
Written by: Scott Cooper (written for the screen by), Donald E. Stewart (manuscript) 
Directed by: Hany Abu-Assad
Starring: Idris Elba, Kate Winslet, Beau Bridges, Dermot Mulroney, Linda Sorensen
Rated: PG-13
Watch the trailer

Plot
When a plane they've chartered to beat a storm crashes in a remote mountain area, two strangers must trust each other in order to survive the extreme elements. With little hope of rescue, they begin a perilous journey to survive.

Verdict
It's a genre that's been done before and better. The first two thirds gloss over the survival aspect and reduce the emotional aspect to a moment of passion. We've seen survival movies and stories where people connect due to extreme circumstances. This could have done that and more, but it doesn't. It's a bland movie with an ending that makes the entire thing worse.
Skip it.

Review
Based on the Charles Martin novel and starring Kate Winslet and Idris Elba this wastes no time jumping right into it. Within minutes they're on a small plane and enough clues have been dropped that with no idea what this movie is about you'd know that plane is going to crash. Their pilot states he didn't file a flight plan and I wasn't buying that. It's at least gross negligence. Would that be allowed? Google states it can provided you don't require instruments to fly. Which means no clouds, fog, or darkness.

I was hoping the crash would be visceral. It wasn't bad, but it's just not as adrenaline pumping as it should be. With Sully and Flight the threshold for that type of scene has been set high.

We get two strangers trying to make it work and I wondered where this would go. They're in a hopeless situation and I began wondering if desperation would fuel a moment of passion as they desire to be close to someone before the end.
I really wanted this to detail how they survive. It looks pretty easy from what we see. It also doesn't do a good job with the passage of time. Winslet's eye heals up quickly, the bruise already yellow, but it seems at most only a few days have passed.

This has the usual story tropes for the genre. Things go bad to worse as they try to survive. This isn't a fast movie and it doesn't drive home the desperation like it should. We see very little day to day or details. This movie could be a survival guide, but we see almost none of that. It downplays them starving to death and I can't tell you how they stayed warm. These are the details I want that make this story real instead of a farce. The ending really drags, and I can't discuss the ending without spoiling it, so here we go.

I liked the ending at first. They both are back in reality. Elba finally connected with someone after his divorce but she has a fiance. He's back to his old life, faced with having to box his feelings when a week ago he was facing death. With all of the moments we could focus on, this dives into a pseudo love story. This would have been much more intriguing if life went on and the mountain was a memory, part fantasy, horror, and trauma. I was hoping for understated, but this went for the happy ending. That left a bad taste after an already bland movie.

Into the Wild explores similar themes of survival while also exploring a character that's an outsider.  If you want something from the survival genre, that's a much better choice.

DAILY CALL SHEET: MAY 2, 2018

Fantastic Animation Festival (1977) Classic collection of oddball animated shorts includes Will Vinton's Oscar winning Closed Mondays and the legendary Bambi Meets Godzilla. Pure pre-CGI handmade goodness. TIL: God is an artist. Honor His works, you honor Him.

Your daily dose of culture courtesy of Unearthly Stranger (1963) - "Who can hide in secret places so that I cannot see them? says the Lord. Do I not fill heaven and earth?" - Jer 23:24

And yes, it’s time again for the Facebook…

10 Day Album Challenge

In no particular order, post 10 of your all time favorite albums, one per day. Choose music that really made an impact on you and is still something you listen to, even if only occasionally. Post the cover; no need to explain why you chose it.

Day 6 of 10 days.

PODCAST 306: Mon Mon Mon Monsters! & Final Exam [School's Out Edition]

This week the Horror Duo chat about the warming temperatures and how this is an early sign that students will soon begin their summer vacations. Inspired by this, they take on a pair of school related flicks. Forest discusses the Shudder exclusive Mon Mon Mon Monsters!. Cory covers the golden age of the slasher movies with Final Exam - proving it to be the Gone With the Wind of the slasher movies.

CONTINUE READING

Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping (2016)

I was scrolling through Emma Stone's filmography when I first saw Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping. It sounded like a really dumb movie from the title and having not heard of it before, I figured she only had a small cameo in it. Turns out I was right, but the film was pretty entertaining so I guess it's a win. 

The film is a mockumentary about Connor 4 Real (Andy Samberg), an internationally renowned pop star who became rich and famous at a young age. He is used to people loving him and his music, but when his new album turns out to be a failure, Connor does everything in his power to maintain his celebrity status. He is really willing to do anything, anything except reuniting with his old rap group, The Style Boyz.

Though it takes a few nice turns, there's nothing surprising or clever about the plot. It couldn't get any more predictable than this, especially at the end, but it's a parody movie, people, and seeing Connor getting himself in such shitty situations is amazing. Also, there are many cameos from real-life celebrities, most of them in the music business, that makes the story more interesting. 

As a parody, Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping effectively makes fun of many of nowadays celebrities. It shows the too many benefits these people benefit from due to their celebrity status, how juvenile some of them acts, how absurd fans can be. But it also shows that these people are often surrounded by fake people, fake friends who are by their side only for the money and fame, and how mean people can be/are to celebrities on the internet (I saw an interview with Riccardo Scamarcio a while back, the green-eyed Italian guy in John Wick 2, and he was saying how mean guys were to him on the internet back in 2004 when he became famous, and that toxicity is the reason why he is not on social media).

Universal Pictures

The reason why Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping works so well is Andy Samberg. He brings the right amount of selfishness, superficiality, cluelessness, insecurity and charm to the character of Connor 4 Real, he makes him feel real which eventually will make us root for him. He is fun to watch as the perfectly embodies the kind of self-obsessed guy who is a dick but doesn't even realise it. The rest of the cast is amazing too.

As for the comedy, it does rely on vulgarity at times --it's not like I was expecting something different after seeing the opening credits-- and some of the jokes are cheesy and kind of flat, but overall the jokes are stupid funny. 

Ultimately, this is not the greatest comedy of all times, but it's perfect if you just want to have some good laughs. I almost forgot, the soundtrack is dope 4 real! 

Traffik Movie Review

Traffik (2018)

Watch the trailer
Written by: J. Mills Goodloe (Writer), Charles Martin (Novel), Chris Weitz (Screenplay)
Directed by: Deon Taylor
Starring: Paula Patton, Omar Epps, Dawn Olivieri, Luke Goss, Missi Pyle, William Fichtner
Rated: R

Plot
A couple off for a romantic weekend in the mountains are accosted by a biker gang. Alone in the mountains, Brea and John must defend themselves against the gang who will stop at nothing to protect their crime ring.

Verdict
The movie falls short of most of its goal. It's not as thrilling as it should be, the dialog is stilted, and the public service announcement about human trafficking feels shallow.
The protagonist doesn't have the bravado of Liam "Taken" Neeson in a thrilling action movie, and this isn't as grim as it should be. It ends up being rather banal. While the ending wasn't as cliche as I predicted, it didn't help either. It takes a real issue and does nothing with it, with some stats at the end trying to pass the movie off as more than it is.
Skip it.

Review
Frequently the characters don't seem human, from what they say to how they act. There are a lot of cliches that push the plot forward and they rarely felt earned. Would a biker gang dealing in human trafficking really bring attention to themselves by harassing tourists? By introducing a classic Chevelle I thought the car might have some point later in the plot, but it's a throwaway.

A weekend getaway becomes a hunt as bikers try to solve a situation they pretty much created. The very foundation of this movie is flimsy. This is never as intense as it should be. The couple doesn't have the skills to be successful. They should have failed quickly. The danger never felt real because the bikers come across as rather clumsy. They are sociopaths for the sake of the movie, but how can they not get two people who are completely unprepared with absolutely zero intentions of being discreet?

This should have been much more grim. This takes the basis of human trafficking and makes a thriller out of it without ever trying to condemn trafficking. With the main character as a reporter, she could have been interviewing victims or victim's families to give us an emotional anchor. Everything concludes rather easily. While this didn't go for the ultimate happy ending, and I really thought it might. It never felt grounded enough.

For a movie focused on the kidnapping of women, the camera tends to lust after Patton which just seems like a disconnect in a movie about human trafficking. There's really only one reason for these shots, and it ultimately bolsters the fact that this movie doesn't really have a point. The trafficking aspect is just an easy in for the story. Making this more victim focused or making Patton a victim of trafficking could have given this a backbone. There's just nothing here.

DAILY CALL SHEET: MAY 1, 2018

Sheena (1984) White jungle goddess from the comics rides through Africa on a horse painted to look like a zebra and talks to monkeys with her mind. TIL: With almost all of Africa being Christian or Muslim, no wonder the movie had to invent a country for its Zambouli religion.

Your daily dose of culture courtesy of The Fastest Guitar Alive (1967) - “Where words fail, music speaks.” - Hans Christian Andersen

And finally, it looks like we’ve reached the mid-point of the Facebook…

10 Day Album Challenge-

In no particular order, post 10 of your all time favorite albums, one per day. Choose music that really made an impact on you and is still something you listen to, even if only occasionally. Post the cover; no need to explain why you chose it.

Day 5 of 10 days.

Lost in La Mancha (2002)

Though I haven't read Miguel de Cervantes's Don Quixote yet, I've always been intrigued by the story which is why I'm really looking forward to seeing Terry Gilliam's The Man Who Killed Don Quixote. I had no idea how hard it's been to make that movie, but now, thanks to Steven who picked Lost in La Mancha for a Thursday Movie Picks back in April, I do. 

This is indeed a documentary about the making of The Man Who Killed Don Quixote. Not the movie starring Adam Driver and Jonathan Pryce that premiers in Cannes this month, but Terry Gilliam's first attempt to make the film, back in 2000. It was supposed to be the making of the film, but it was a failure so it became about Gilliam's failure in making the film, which is why it was eventually renamed Lost in La Mancha.

This documentary is a quite fascinating look at how wrong things can go while making a movie. Actually, how everything can go wrong while making a movie because everything went wrong in Gilliam's first attempt. From pre-production to production itself, not a single thing went as planned.

The budget was huge for a European production (32 million) but it wasn't big enough to make the kind of film Gillam wanted to make, the extras hadn't been rehearsed, planes flew overhead, almost a biblical thunderstorm happened which flooded some of the equipment and therefore halted production, and as if that all wasn't enough Jean Rochefort, the old French actor who could ride a horse and spent months learning English to be able to play Don Quixote, suffered from ill health. And after only 6 days of troubled shooting, the project was abandoned.

Lost in La Mancha is unfortunately limited by that. This was supposed to be about the making of the film and not about its failure, I get that, but the footage of just 6 days of shooting, some interviews and not much more isn't enough to make the documentary as interesting as it could have been. Gilliam mentions earlier in the film that he already had been working on the film for a decade, and I think it would have been nice showing some of those years through drawings or simple interviews.

In spite of that, it was still interesting to the parallel between Gilliams and Cervantes's Don Quixote. His quest to make this film is just like Don Quixote's quest to become a hero, almost impossible.