Guest Review: A Quiet Place (2018)

"Hear No Evil:" A Quiet Place

By Jonas Schwartz

Sound plays such a vital essence of any film, whether horror, sci-fi, or comedy, that the audience almost- takes it for granted. Not so for John Krasinski's masterful shocker A Quiet Place. Practically a silent movie, Krasinski's film reminds audiences just how much noise we make even without trying. Even something as gentle as a foot rustling in grass can be deafening when the rest of the world is absolutely still. And silence is tantamount in the world created in A Quiet Place, for even the softest whisper can get you and your loved ones eviscerated by creatures in wait.

The world is almost vacant, the human race almost decimated. Alien beings with hyper-sensitive hearing have slaughtered everyone. One family has survived because they could communicate through sign language -- their only daughter (Millicent Simmonds) is deaf. Mother (Emily Blunt), father (Krasinski) and their three children live on a farm in upstate New York. They sneak into their deserted town for resources, drugs, food etc. They think they've covered all their bases, made sure that everyone is safe, but 2 AA batteries become blood in the water for the family.

Krasinski turns the suspense on high, with several terrifying set pieces and makes every sound seem dangerous.  Something as ordinary as picking a pill container from a shelf becomes a hair-raising moment if any of the bottles should topple over. He concentrates the camera on potential dangers, like a nail sticking on a step-board or a birthing, and pounds the fear into the audience that something horrific is around the corner. The film has minimal gore but relies on shock, tautness, and cringe moments.

The script by Krasinski, Bryan Woods and Scott Beck wastes no time with exposition or flashbacks. The prologue takes place a few months after the attack and the rest of the film, a year and a half after day zero. There's no explanations of why or how, just a few clues in newspaper clippings. The unknown becomes a leading horror. There's no idea how many alien monsters exist, where they came from, or how to kill them, so the family is always in peril. Adding to the horror, the film centers purely on the family. Other than a random character or two, the family is the audiences' only focal point. There's not a bus of camp counselors with victim tattooed to their foreheads, just the family, in constant jeopardy.

There are a few stretches of the imagination. For the storyline, having a main character pregnant, where one cannot stop the noises of childbirth or control a baby's wails, only adds to the tension, however, it's hard to believe that the parents in this situation would have done everything up to wrapping each other's full bodies in condoms to not get pregnant while merciless creatures are on the warpath. Also, because the aliens' weakness is revealed to the audience way before the characters, the public has plenty of time to work out why the characters should have been a bit savvier in bringing down the monsters.

Without the performances, the movie would never work. Krasinski, Blunt and the children play their roles without irony. The pain on their face throughout the film gives the illusion the actors are as terrified as their characters. Because this family unit is the whole film, the two leads, married in real life, have built formidable relationships with Simmonds, Noah Jupe, and Cade Woodward, so that the bonds between them are undeniable.

Just like John William's seminal theme for Jaws, the score by Marco Beltrami warns the audience to hold tight to their neighbor's hand. Sounding like a fog horn over rattling tin, the music is simplistic but primal.

The creatures are reminiscent of Stan Winston's aliens from the space franchise, with spiderlike bodies and protruding teeth.  By adding pumpkin-like heads that glow and pull apart to reveal more teeth and ear drums that glow, the motion capture monsters feel fresh. 

Like last year's Oscar winner Jordan Peele, another comedy actor has emerged as a horror icon, someone not only carrying the torch but reinventing it.  John Krasinski's A Quiet Place is as startling as the early juggernauts of Steven Spielberg (Jaws), John Carpenter (Halloween), and Tobe Hooper (Texas Chainsaw Massacre). It will be exciting to see what brave new world he invents next.

Guest Post: Love, Simon (2018)

Love, Simon is an email lost in translation

By Jonas Schwartz

Love, Simon, a quaint, but unremarkable comedy by television producer Greg Berlanti, wants to be something remarkable, but misses the mark of dazzling the audience. Despite a winning lead performance by Nick Robinson, Berlanti's direction, and Elizabeth Berger and Isaac Aptaker's screenplay feels built by a committee, stealing tropes from better teen films and never really surprising the audience. Robinson is desperately trying to jump over into the complexities and naturalism of Call Me By Your Name, while the creators have caged him in an episode of Dawson's Creek.

In a suburban utopia, young Simon's teen angst has come to a head when an anonymous schoolmate admits he's gay. Tired himself of hiding in the closet, Simon takes a leap and begins corresponding with his phantom new friend. Feeling empowered every day, Simon slowly removes the shackles of hiding, and decides to seek out the charmer on the other end of the computer. Complications toss Simon out of the closet quicker than he anticipated, and his own stupid decisions isolate him from his closest friends. His own disastrous reveal to the school scares off Simon's love interest from exposure leaving Simon completely alone and heartbroken.

If one looks at the teen movies of the past that really resonate, their unconventionality and sizzling dialogue raise them above the standard fare: the nihilistic humor of Heathers, the aching relatability of John Hughes' characters of the '80, the utter confidence of the modern Hester Prynne in Easy A. The films took risks with eccentric casting (who would have thought in 1986 to cast Harry Dean Stanton as a lovelorn father to the heroine), dialogue that could have been transcribed from a school lunchroom, and plots that disclosed how rocky teen life can be. Love, Simon is affable, with an identifiable youth, but so many script choices were banal. The desperate, unhip but caring school administrators who overshare (Allison Janney in 10 Things I Hat About You and Chris Parnell on TV's Grown-ish), the school carnival on school grounds that looks like Six Flags (Grease), the best friend who secretly loves the hero (Dawson's Creek), the loving, but clueless parents (Heathers), and the deadline for true love to arrive while the entire cast waits around and roots for our protagonist (Never Been Kissed), all feel like snippets stolen from a night of Netflix and chill.

The biggest problem with the film is Simon's sensibility feels anachronistic. He seems to live in this '80s world where teens have little exposure to gay life. Coming out is no doubt still traumatic to this day, and bullying has not subsided, it may even have gotten worse in this conservative age, but gay teens see gay characters on TV all the time on hit shows like Will & Grace and Rupaul’s Drag Race and in movies. Simon feels like a fish out of water from the days when gay life was foreboded in the mainstream world.

The cast are all excellent but deserve more nuance.  Robinson, whose charisma could fuel a jet, carries the entire film on his shoulders. Katherine Langford, who was heart-shredding in the Netflix Hit 13 Reasons Why, is given no material as the forlorn best friend. As the folks, Jennifer Garner and Josh Duhamel belong on a sitcom.

Love, Simon could have been groundbreaking. Unlike last year's award darling Call Me By Your Name, Love, Simon is a gay movie produced by a major studio, 20^th Century Fox. Greg Berlanti's smoothing of the edges may get a swarm more people to the seats, but will audiences be talking about the film in a year, or 20, as with Clueless, one of the zeniths of teen films?

Postscript: One day after writing the first draft of this review, I caught Riverdale, the hit Berlanti CW show. The B-story was all about the characters going to see Love, Simon and how the film affected their lives.  The cold synergy only made the movie seem more manufactured.

Check out Jonas's reviews at www.theatermania.com/author/jonas-schwartz_169 

Guest Post: Black Panther (2018)

Black Panther Soars

By Jonas Schwartz

Responsibility has been the cornerstone of the Marvel universe. In the Iron Man films, Tony Stark's past playboy irresponsibility constantly bites him in the ass. The Avengers face ramifications for past collateral damage in Captain America: Civil War. And of course, Peter Parker's uncle Ben has been accredited with the famous quote, "With great power comes great responsibility." Now the blockbuster Black Panther raises the subtext to the forefront as an entire civilization suffers due to their past choices and the sins of their fathers in a thought-provoking, yet exhilarating action adventure.

T'Challa (Chadwick Boseman), who watched his father die in the Civil War film, follows the rituals, including battling a fellow tribe leader, to win the crown of King of Wakanda and absorb the land's ancient strength to become Black Panther. As warrior and leader, he must stop an evil dealer, Ulysses Klaue (Andy Serkis), who has stolen a Wakanda's artifact forged with vibranium, the source of Black Panther's power. T'Challa's former girlfriend Nakia (Oscar winner Lupita Nyong'o) and his top warrior Okoye (The Walking Dead's Danai Gurira) travel to South Korea to bring down Klaue. But it's Klaue's mysterious partner Erik (Michael B Jordan) who poses the greatest danger for the new king and his entire kingdom.

Director Ryan Coogler, who intrigued audiences with the complex Rocky sequel, Creed, and the tragic Fruitvale Station, raises Black Panther above standard popcorn fare. His script (co-written by The People Vs. O.J. Simpson producer Joe Robert Cole) contains epic battle scenes, including a civil war to rival the Avengers' tiff in the last film, high speed chases and snarling villains as one would expect, but the theme of consequences elevates the script and the film as a whole.

The film sees blood on everyone's hands, particularly our heroes, and they must devise a way to make right their failures. Countries that stand by and protect themselves from harm while watching their brothers and sisters suffer, they have blood on their hands. The men who justifiably were enraged due to inequality yet take blind vengeance on everyone they can, they have blood on their hands. People who follow a code without paying attention to how it affects the innocent, they have blood on their hands. In this universe, no one gets the skate by and no one is entirely blameless. It would have been easy for Coogler to make a simple 'us vs. them' world, but instead the film demands everyone act more responsibly and still manages to encase that in a thrilling movie that has lines at the box office around the block (as this review is being written, the film has already earned 900 million in six week).

Coogler paints a world where the women stand equal to their male counterparts. They are fearless soldiers, technological gurus, and leaders who rule with their hearts. The Wakandan nation does still feel a bit patriarchal with its queen (Angela Bassett) taking a backseat to the men, and the strong women serving their male leaders, but progress takes baby steps.

Boseman makes a majestic leader. With concentrative eyes and an assurance that never comes off as cocky, he presents a true super being. Nyong'o brings wisdom to the spy unafraid of danger or speaking her mind. Gurira is fierce as the bold leader of the Dora Milaje tribe. Jordan, who shined in Coogler's two previous films, brings angst and fury to Erik. While many villains are driven mad by the machines that give him power, he is fueled purely by pain, and the film allows him a full arc for which he takes full advantage to build a complicated antagonist, a doppelganger to our hero.

The visuals are startling, with a color scheme of royal blues and purples contrasting with biting reds. Coogler allows his camera to speak for him, particularly in a shot where an upside-down camera spells out the chaos that has just emerged victorious. The action scenes are shot fluidly with intensity.

Marvel films never allow the audiences to check their brains at the box office. They consistently draw the viewer in but teach them the fallibility of even our most esteemed leaders, who strive like the rest of us to improve themselves so they can make the world a better place. Black Panther touches subjects about race and responsibility that few billion-dollar films would care to drum up and handles the themes with mature hands.

Check out Jonas's reviews at www.theatermania.com/author/jonas-schwartz_169