After her release from jail for her mother’s murder, Jae goes back home to live with her brother. As she is highly uncomfortable there, she decides to go with him and some friends to a music festival in the desert. After encountering mechanical difficulties, they meet a group of guys traveling in an RV and get lost in the desert. The beautiful location and landscape has them at ease at first until they realize they are lost and at risk of dying from the elements. Written and directed by Ashley Avis, Deserted is one mellow movie where the lead is looking for herself as much as her way out of the desert. The film processes in a slow fashion yet does not feel long or boring. It follows Jae and her brother Robin along with old and new friends. The dialogue seems genuine for the great majority of the film with a few hiccups that barely feel like such. The characters don’t have much background from the start and a few bits and pieces are discovered along the way which works with the lead’s search of self.
Tag Archives: Drama
Manchester by the Sea (2016)
Lee Chandler is a man who is literally a hollow individual who spends his entire life going through the motions. He works a hard job as a superintendent for four apartment buildings, gets little to no respect, and falls asleep every night in his basement hole in front of his television. On rare occasions he stops by his local bar to get drunk and engage in fist fights with locals. He may not have died the night his house burned down with his children in it, but he might as well be in his grave. Chandler isn’t a man who has given up any hope of a happy life, but a man who has given up on himself and only himself. “Manchester by the Sea” has every opportunity to be a sickly sweet sitcom about a man learning to live again thanks to his nephew. Until the very end, though, director Kenneth Lonergan’s drama is a somber, incredibly compelling masterpiece that confronts guilt, grief, and the difficulty of dealing with losing someone we loved.
South of 8 (2016) [San Diego Film Week 2017]
In the near future, during the second great depression, an ex-con joins a duo of burgeoning bank thieves as there are no jobs and he needs to survive. At the same time, a resistance movement grows fast and a group of female criminals is causing mayhem. As things take a more serious and more violent turn for all involved, the authorities are closing in on them. In writer/director Tony Olmos’ first feature film a few years ago, the story may be a bit exaggerated but it will feel close to what may become reality to some. The story is set in the San Diego area amid racial and class issues, political problems, and an upswing in crime during the second great depression.
Pearl (2016)
ACADEMY AWARD NOMINEE – Director Patrick Osborne gave audiences the beautiful and sweet animated short “Feast” about a dog’s love for food and his owner. With “Pearl,” Osborne breaks out of that smaller narrative to create a sweet, touching, and incredible ode to music and the power of family. Patrick Osborne created “Pearl” as one of the first VR animated short films that allowed audiences to experience the movie in 360 degrees.
Borrowed Time (2016)
ACADEMY AWARD NOMINEE – It’s devastating how truly life can change from one extreme to another. One moment we’re enjoying life and soaking in an afternoon, and the next we’re facing guilt and horrific loss. “Borrowed Time” is a very on the nose description of what Andrew Coats and Lou Hamou-Lhadj’s narrative entails, but it still manages to be an emotional and brutally heartbreaking tale about loss and death. An aging sheriff stands on the edge of a cliff. It’s the very same cliff that has haunted him his entire life no matter how hard he has tried to forget it.
Arrival (2016)
While many science fictions films in the past have confronted the idea of communication with alien species, as well as building a language with said species, no film like “Arrival” has accomplished the examination of the inherent importance of language with other species as a means of keeping peace and preventing disaster. Films like “Prometheus” have tried and failed to tackle the concept of galactic travel to learn about ideas. “Close Encounters” which is typically celebrated for being a film about communication never quite rises to the idea that interplay between species could hinge on peace and total war. When we meet the alien species we can never really be sure what their intent is. When the time comes to meet them face to face, “Arrival” is a world that side steps military interference in exchange for linguistic help.
Havenhurst (2017)
It’s “Rosemary’s Baby” meets “The Toolbox Murders” in what I can easily describe as one of the glossier movies I’ve ever seen that look an awful lot like a cable TV movie of week. That’s neither a compliment nor an insult, as “Havenhurst” is comfortably in the middle ground of horror mysteries. It’s too shallow to be a morality tale, and too stern to be considered exploitation. A lot of the concept doesn’t entirely make much sense, especially when you consider how much work it would be to dispose of so many corpses and pull off the operation the owners of the apartment complex do without a lot of police interference and whatnot. Havenhurst is a Gothic apartment complex in the middle of New York that is painted a lot in the same shades Roman Polanski painted his domain in “Rosemary’s Baby.” Its smack dab in the middle of the city and sticks out like a sore thumb, but its underbelly is immense and incomprehensible.