Movie Review - The Upper Footage

I thought something interesting I could do would be to spotlight some indie movies from time to time. I get twitter followers all the time that are independent movies looking for a fanbase. One of those I found awhile back was The Upper Footage, a found footage film that claims to be an edited 90 minute film based around 393 minutes of footage recovered from a camera that witnessed the death of a young New York socialite and the subsequent events after her death.

Because I think the less you know about the film the better, I'll keep the plot synopsis light. Basically, a handful of young, rich New York socialites are having a regular night on the town, including bar hopping, drinking excessively in a limo and scoring cocaine. One of them, named Will, has a weird quirk where he likes to record everything, so he's along for the ride recording the nights events. While out, one of the guys decides he wants to get laid and picks up a girl to party with, Jackie. While partying with booze and cocaine later on, Jackie dies of a drug overdose, and the rest of the film is how the others deal with their new found predicament.

The film certainly is interesting, and the writer/director Justin Cole did an amazing job setting up the film. Years before it came out, he sent footage of the film to news sites and gossip sites alike about the death and disappearance of an unnamed New York socialite, and how he had all the footage that a certain character's family was trying to buy up and make disappear. There were rumors thrown out that Quentin Tarantino wanted to buy the film rights and footage and make his own movie out of it, there were rumors that the girl shown snorting a massive pile of cocaine in videos sent to news services were different celebrities, with one Dancing With The Stars contestant issuing a statement that it wasn't her. The conceit of the film though, is that it's all fake. The movie is a work of pure fiction, but between the real world setup of the footage, the inability to see a cast list or even the face of the director online, it works as a truly interesting found footage film.

The Upper Footage, while promoting itself as a semi-horror movie, is really not that scary or intense. What it is however, is believable. You can believe what happens in this film has happened in real life, you can believe what you're seeing is real footage from a real event. That being said, I found myself bored or distracted throughout portions of the film. Some of the reasons that the film looks so believable are reasons that added to my distraction or boredom, such as the extensive amount of partying that happens in the limo before we meet Jackie, the lack of focus of the camera during long sequences that sometimes mean you're looking at nothing or just lack of anything happening in parts of the film. Maybe I'm biased because I both knew going in that this was fictional and I've also seen a lot of horror films, but nothing in this movie was shocking or unsettling.

What this film is however, is an experience. I felt like I was watching a real event take place, and that's the overall point of the film, that you could leave the film questioning what you just saw was real, and for that I have to give it a lot of credit. Writer/Director Justin Cole wanted to give viewers a movie that made them question the reality of a situation. While most found-footage films have some sort of conceit to them, like ghosts or alien invasions or superpowers that take you out of the believabilty of the film, The Upper Footage is a film that covers something fairly mundane (in comparison) and because of that, you don't get that knowing feeling that what you're seeing isn't real. It's very real, it just happens that this filmed version of events isn't.

I highly recommend people check out The Upper Footage if you're into trying new experiences when it comes to film. While it might not be the most exciting, thrilling or scary found footage film, it's certainly the most real.

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Movie Review - John Wick

Between personal reasons and being a little burned out I took a break from the blog for awhile, but now I'm back to rave about a little film I saw called John Wick, and why you should see it.

John Wick on paper looks questionable. The plot? A retired hitman comes back for one more job after some dumb criminals kill his dog and steal his car. The writer? A guy who's written two mediocre-to-bad films that were released in 2012. The directors? Two veteran stunt coordinators with no previous directing credits. This movie on paper looks like something Nicolas Cage would be in to earn a couple hundred bucks and would go straight to DVD. In actuality though, this film works as an excellent B movie that is surely going to help revitalize the career of Keanu Reeves, and maybe make him the action hero he always wanted to be.

As far as the plot is concerned, I've already given out the majority of information you need to know about John Wick. Wick is a retired Hitman, who left the life for a woman. In those years, she falls ill to some kind of sickness and dies. After she dies, Wick gets one last gift from her, a puppy delivered to his doorstep to encourage him to keep on living. However, some criminals break into his house, steal his classic car and kill the puppy. When Wick comes to, he vows to track down and kill everyone responsible for these heinous deeds, and he will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger. The rest of the film follows Wick as he stalks and kills the bad guys and how he traverses the criminal underworld.

The movie is shot wonderfully, has a great soundtrack and delightful stunts. The gun play and stunts are exactly something I would expect of two directors who have worked on some of the biggest action films of the last couple decades. The writing isn't spectacular, but it never needed to be. This film is a classic B-movie shoot ém up, in the vein of Taken, Hard Boiled, Die Hard, Dredd, and of course the film Shoot Ém Up. The movie is less about the story than it is about cool ways Keanu Reeves can kill people, but it's solid and plenty for what it needs. John Wick looks excellent and has a playfulness about it in the way it was shot, they went into this knowing exactly the film they were making. They even have a little flair to the Russian subtitles the film uses. The score was well done for the movie, though I admit a lot of it sounded similar to each other, it worked to set a general tone for the film.

While the story isn't amazing, the world-building involved in creating the criminal underworld is fantastic and fascinating, getting an appearance from The Wire's Lance Reddick as the front desk attendant of a criminal hotel and Ian Mcshane as some sort of big shot in the Hotel. I could watch a whole movie just about the goings-on with this hotel and the people within, it's totally engrossing and fun to watch. The acting throughout this movie is sold as well, with solid turns from Adrianne Palicki, Lance Reddick, John Leguizamo, Ian McShane, even Willem Dafoe and Dean Winters doing good work here. The star of the show however really is Keanu Reeves, and the acclaim is deserved. In the past he's gotten a lot of flack for his acting, being called wooden or cold, but where elsewhere that would be a detractor, having Reeves be a detached, calm and collected killer in this film plays right to his strengths and he excels in it. He delivers just the right amount of emotion to make the character believable, and plays it with enough cheese to let you know he knows what film they're making. The creators of this film weren't looking to make an Oscar-winning piece of cinematic gold, they were looking to make a kick-ass movie about a guy killing people in different brutal and visually pleasing ways while getting to crack a joke or two along the way.

Without giving too much more away, I gotta say right now as a fan of this genre of film that John Wick is an instant classic and I can't wait to make it a part of my collection. Go see it now and enjoy the ride that is John Wick.