Update And Hiatus

    Hi, readers! Once again it is that time of year to announce that this blog will be taking a hiatus until the summer. Perhaps I will find the time to give updates as I prepare to shoot my freshman film, but this semester is going to be very intense and thus I will find it hard to find time to do anything but film. Also take into account that I want to work at least 2 jobs this summer (film school is expensive) and therefore it will also be difficult to find any down time. 

   For now, this is the Gothic Bohemian, signing off until next time. 

-GB 

Double Review: "Room" and "Synecdoche, New York"

Today I'm going to write a longer post than usual because I was just so moved by both of these movies that I have a lot to get out and I want to get it out as fast as possible.

    First up, we have "Room" adapted from the bestselling novel (which happens to be one of my personal favorites). I was very excited when I heard that this was going to get a film adaptation, and rightfully so: the execution is almost entirely flawless. The film follows the story of five-year-old Jack and his young mother, "Ma", as they spend their days residing in a small space only known as "Room". To Jack, Room is his entire world; he was born there, and knows of nothing beyond the metal door. However, Ma knows the truth: to her, Room is her prison, a cell which she must inhabit after being kidnapped and raped several years ago. As she struggles to be a source of strength for her son, she grows evermore desperate to escape their situation...but how will Jack find his place in this new world? 

 The cinematography is such that the audience feels how cramped and claustrophobic Room is, yet it also expands it in a way that matches how Jack sees it truly as being his entire world. The movie starts out as dark, although it strangely feels calm, bringing in and highlighting the characters of both Jack and Ma, and the different mentalities they possess. As we step out into the real world, everything seems far too bright at first: again, bringing us into the perspectives of two characters who haven't seen much sunlight in almost a decade. However, as Jack adapts to his new environment, it takes on a warmer feel to it, and the winter setting presents a feeling of tranquility and peace, emphasizing their new beginning now that the chaos is over. 

   Brie Larson and Jacob Tremblay have wonderfully developed chemistry, and both offer stellar performances. Larson captures her character's maternal affection, but also knows when to bring in the desperation, depression, and fear. There is a strong sense that Ma wants to protect Jack while they are in Room, although when they actually return to the real world, she loses her grip on sanity and the reality of her situation smacks her right in the back of the head. Larson's transition from strength to emotional instability and severe dependency does not feel forced; her progression is stable, and it is backed by a lot of strong emotion that packs a hard punch. 

    Tremblay is appropriately naïve, yet shows many subtle hints of maturity that makes his character truly unique. This has to be one of the best child performances I have ever witnessed. Jack is smart, and learns to be strong, but he is still a kid in the sense that he doesn't truly understand the severity of the situation. His innocence is appropriate and believable. (I dare anyone who watches this to not burst into tears as Ma, after an apparent suicide attempt, admits to him that she hasn't been a good Ma, to which he answers, "But you're still Ma.") He only wishes to care for Ma, the person he is closer to than anyone else. Ma, much like Room, is his entire world, and it is delivered in an outstanding manner. 

   Which is why this film is such a success: it always comes back to both of the principal characters. They build off of each other, have expert synchronization in their actions and reactions, and create a world that is, in an original sense, strangely affectionate and hopeful despite the subject matter of the film. All I can say is that Larson had better win the Oscar this year; "Room" is utterly fascinating, and truly a sight to behold. 

   Overall rating: 10/10

     Every so often, there comes a film that causes filmmakers such as myself to think, "This is why I want to make films." And "Synecdoche, New York" certainly does not disappoint in any aspect of its story or presentation. 

    The film is, to simplify the basic storyline, about a theater director, Caden, whose personal life is falling apart as he builds a life-size model of NYC in a warehouse in preparation for his big show. Along the way, he deals with lingering health issues, failed relationships, and an incredible sense of self-doubt and almost failed discovery. But all of that is, of course, just the basics. There is so much going on in this movie, you can watch it thousands of times and always find something new. Everything, from words in the dialogue to subtle actions to timing and blocking and editing, is all done like clockwork: everything is there for a reason, everything has a purpose, everything is sending a message.

    A phrase that is consistently repeated in some way throughout the film is the fact that "the end is built into the beginning". And from the very opening shot, this phrase is visualized and proven: the opening shot is a gray fade, which is also what ends the film. Also, in the beginning of the film, Caden's wife Adele continuously coughs, which harkens to the ending, in which she dies of lung cancer. The entire opening morning scene also jumps around with times and dates (in a very subtle manner), so even though it appears to be one day, it is in fact a presentation of several weeks, but showing that it's only the same routine over and over again. The entire film showcases the passage of time in that it is both inevitable and it gives and takes whatever you encounter in life. There is also the theme of how death, the end of a person's "timeline", is the great equalizer. While Caden obsesses over his health issues, he eventually dies, as does his wife Adele; although they are different, they end up in the same place. 

  I also liked how this film really played with the "meta" aspect of what filmmakers are often afraid to portray, as it is a delicate technique that presents a huge risk in completely deconstructing your entire diegesis. Here, it is done in a way that totally makes sense. Caden constructs NYC inside of his own small "world", and fills it with look-alikes, even reaching the point where he casts his ex-wife's custodian as himself. This was particularly poignant to my understanding of the film because as Caden;s life withers away, it becomes apparent that his parts of "lost" or "yearning" begin to physicalize and separate themselves from his entire identity. This is presented in the character Sammy, who is obsessed with Caden and eventually becomes involved in his romantic relationships, insinuating that Caden is losing his sense of self. This is solidified in the ending, where his model NYC is torn apart by an unexplained force, killing everyone except the actress playing Ellen's mother. At this point, he is wearing a headset that gives him instructions, but as he lays to rest and proclaims that he finally knows how to do his play, he is instructed to "Die", and does so. The gray slate then brings the film full circle, showing how "the end is built into the beginning." 

    This film is a martyr in that it died financially and in terms of virtually no distribution, yet it is probably one of the most transcendental pieces of art I have ever witnessed. The performances are all excellent, the themes are strong and real, and the entire thing is so detailed that it surprises you every time. Simply put (though the film is the farthest thing from simple), "Synecdoche, New York" is a modern masterpiece. 

Overall rating: 10/10

All The Nightmares Came Today

   Today we acknowledge the terrible loss of one of the most prolific and influential rock musicians of all time. David Bowie was more than just an artist. He was open about his sexuality and gender expression, advocated for LGBT rights, called out the racism in the music industry, and most importantly taught us all to be ourselves. I don't see this so much as a final farewell as an acknowledgement that the Starman has gone home. Fly high, Ziggy...you will be missed.


-The GB

The Curse Of The Over-Achiever

    For the last six years, I have had many labels thrown in my direction. 

    "Perfectionist"

    "Type-A"

    "Extremely organized"

    "Overachiever"

    And to be fair, I have by and large taken all of these as compliments, like I'm sure anyone would. I mean, because since my generation is so apparently lazy, that I should be damn proud of myself for constantly going at 100 miles an hour, right? Why, I should revel in the fact that I am setting myself apart from other teenagers my age (given decades-long stereotypes)! 

     Except, as Alexandra Robbins pointed out, my generation has become the complete opposite of that. Our culture has denigrated into a gigantic "education" factory in which teenagers are expected to churn out perfect test scores, papers, AP exams, and community service hours in order to prove to the world that you can play with the big boys (the big boys being the adults). The results are staggering: teen suicide has soared, hours of sleep have gone down, and the stakes rise a little bit each time a new generation comes through the machine. 

     I did try to avoid this sickening culture for as long as I could, but the peer pressure proved to be too much for myself and my parents (exacerbated by the elitist environment of our small town). Thus, beginning in grade 9, I joined the cult and became an "overachiever". High school nurtured this to no end: so many clubs to be president of, so many papers to edit to perfection, so many ways to help your community, even if it's just for the sake of a college application! We were truly the embodiment of the Affluent White American's Dream. 

    Only thing is, there have been studies that suggest that this type of grade-driven marathon stops short in college, as kids experience a severe burnout, or worse. And as I entered community college, I only had to scroll through Facebook to see evidence of this. Kids who had been at the top of my grade were dropping out and coming back home after realizing that they spent more time trying to get into a college instead of actually sitting down and really thinking about what they were going to study once they got there. It was almost a disappointment to see all these "promising" kids become far too overwhelmed to actually become involved in what they had supposedly worked years for. 

     However, for me, I didn't slow down; I upped the ante. I often debate why this mentality began to grow stronger within my two years at community college. Maybe it was due to the fact that I felt I needed to prove myself to a higher standard, given that a stigma is prevalent in my town against community college and trade school. For the first year, this actually worked well. I made Dean's List. I was able to balance work and school easily. I used resources to my advantage and got out of my comfort zone a bit. And it would have been fine if I had just stayed like that. 

    But then came the second year at community college, and things began to go a little differently. I switched my job to one at the college, which paid better and allowed me to do homework when it was slow. Only problem is, the hours were longer, and I had to get up earlier and leave later; by the spring semester, I left home at 7AM and got home at close to 8 or 9PM on most days. On the weekends, I buried myself in schoolwork, since those were the only days I had off. If I had time off, and wasn't studying or reading, then I felt guilty and utterly disgusted with myself that I was wasting time that could've been spent trying to go the extra mile. 

     I didn't forsee the consequences at first. In the fall semester, I began to cut myself to relieve stress. I kept Post-Its by the bed because I often lay awake worrying about things that were due, and it helped me gain a sense of control just to write it down. I studied like a madwoman for every test and quiz, and if I got anything less than a perfect score I would beat myself the entire way home over what I could have possibly done wrong. Not to mention that my acid reflux came back, something that had gone away in my first year of college and I had not seen since my senior year of highschool. By graduation, I was practically a zombie: a sleep-deprived, anxiety-driven, reading and writing machine that was about to explode. Luckily, there was a payoff in that I was accepted into the film program at the college I was hoping to get into. Which brings me to a reflection on how my overachieving went over with my professors during my first semester. 

    At Purchase, little changed, and again I pushed myself even further: I made a gigantic schedule of every single little assignment I would have to do, and basically made a resolution to not rest or relax until every single one was done and handed in. This worked out great for class readings, even though I discovered that reading too far ahead actually becomes a problem, since you basically have to read it again, yet I didn't correct this behavior. I also jumped on my other film assignments, filming less than a week after the project was discussed and churning out short film screenplays in just a few hours. It was only when my Film Workshop professor sent me my evaluation did I wake up to what was happening to me. 

   In her email, she did admit that I was a diligent student and that this was fine. However, she also added that having a "get-it-done" mentality 100% of the time would prove problematic for filmmaking projects. If I did not allow my projects to work themselves out and breathe, then they would fail. There would be no life to them. And what director wants that?

   I took some time to evaluate my behavior after what she said, and I realized that she was right. I knew my obsessive nature resulted in lack of sleep, anxiety, and constantly writing and re-writing to-do lists for EVERYTHING (even things that were months or years away), but she really made me face what was going on. 

   So, because of this, I want you to evaluate your own behavior. Read through this set of questions and try to consider my suggestions below. 

   For each question, answer "Yes" or "No":

1. Do you constantly try to attain perfection with every single thing I do? 
2. Is yout planner overflowing with not just appointments, but assignments and other random reminders for very simple tasks that you otherwise don't trust yourself to just remember? 
3. Are you afraid to trust others to do their share of the work when in a group project setting? (Add an extra "yes" if you secretly have the ambition to do the entire project yourself). 
4. Do you feel that you are often in competition with your peers? 
5. Do you have a constant drive to do everything in the shortest amount of time possible? 
6. Do you often lie in bed worrying about assignments?  
7. Do you write reminders for simple tasks, and then re-write them over and over again because you are terrified of forgetting things?  
8. Are you afraid of being "average" in any way?  
9. Are you afraid of failure? (Be honest)
10. Are you extremely self-critical about even the most insignificant things? 
11. Do you become irrationally envious when others do something better than you did?  
12. Do you consider anything below "first place" to be a failure?  
13. Do you feel guilty when you relax or do unproductive activities to unwind, because you feel you could be using the time to work on an assignment?  
14. Do you have a million side projects that you are working on at the same time as your other work, despite how much time they all demand? 
15. Do you find it hard to congratulate yourself when you complete a difficult project, because your focus is only on the next thing you have to do?  
16. Do you have catastrophic thoughts? (Ex. You forget to study, and then you tell yourself that because of this, you will fail the class, and then won't graduate, and then won't get a job, and on and on.)  
17. Is "tired" now just a consistent part of your personality?  
18. Do you make gigantic to-do lists and plan out every single minute of every single day?  
19. Do you do this a week or more in advance?  
20. Do you plan out your outfits a week in advance? 
21. Do you make very meticulous and detailed plans for things you see yourself doing years from now? 
22. Are you consistently too "early" for things and don't consider this to be an issue? 
23. Are you overtly judgemental of others, but are fragile when it comes to people giving you their own critiques? 
24. Do you pump yourself up to be invincible, when in reality you worry about every single thing you think about? 
25. Do you engage in harmful behaviors to cope with stress?
26. Have you thought about running away or killing yourself due to stress?
27. Do you often have emotional breakdowns and wonder what you are doing with your life?
28. Do you have persistent feelings about never amounting to anything, because there will always be someone better than you? 
29. Do you feel crushed if you don't do something perfect on your first try? 
30. And finally: Do you have the mentality that you need to be the best at absolutely everything and do absolutely everything and do it right goddamn now and you aren't going to settle for anything less? 

    If you answered "Yes" to ten or more of these questions, there is a good chance you have caught the "Overachiever" bug and are on your way to a massive burnout. Now is your chance to slow down; understand that it will be difficult, but keep in mind that you cannot do it alone. If you don't focus and breathe, your work will suffer. You will suffer. And what is the payoff? Well, if you have the overachiever mentality, there appears to be no payoff. Thus, we have a huge problem: if there is no reward, why do it? Why push yourself beyond your personal limits to the point where everything has to be a certain way, and it can't be anything else? 

    I would say something like "Hakuna Matata", even though it's cliche, but even so, take it to heart: not a lot of stuff in this world is worth worrying about. I mean yes, if your life is in danger or you don't know where you're next meal is coming from, by all means feel free to worry about that. But for those of us who have those necessities, and only need to worry about work performance and grades, all I can say is this: CALM THE FUCK DOWN. Life will move too fast for you to be a part of it.

   Now if you'll excuse me....I have to try and take my own advice. 

  Long post, guys....I needed to vent, and it worked! 

"Would You Rather" Film Review

   This has been on my Netflix queue forever so since I was getting kind of bored from watching back-to-back hipster indie flicks, I decided to take a break. Initially, it looked like it would be average at best, and a pretentious wannabe Saw flick at the worst. And to be fair, the Saw vibe is definitely felt, but this movie also offers a couple of interesting elements as well. So allow me to break it down: 

   The protagonist is a young woman named Iris (Brittany Snow), who spends most of her time caring for her terminally ill younger brother. After his doctor introduces her to a philantropist named Shepard Lambrick, he informs her that if she wins a game at his upcoming dinner party, he will secure her brother the proper donor to save his life. She accepts, and soon discovers that other individuals at the dinner party also want a piece of the pie. Lambrick introduces the game as being "would you rather", but with a slight catch: each round involves some type of physical and mental torture, with the game becoming more dangerous with each round. As the guests begin to fear for their lives, they realize that something truly sadistic and sinister is lurking behind Lambrick's promise of charity. 

    Now, upon seeing the trailer, I did find this to be an interesting concept for a horror film. A lot of times, certain horror movies fail because they focus way too much on cramming in a bunch of plot points and random scares without actually allowing the story to breathe. Here, the story elements are given enough room so that it all flows at a fairly steady pace and nothing has to stop completely so that the audience members are given a chance to reorient themselves. And I feel like this is one of the film's biggest strengths. I thought that the tension was extremely well-executed, and especially considering the type of story being told, it is very easy to completely fuck this element up if you don't balance it correctly. They expanded on the moments that needed to be built up, and they condensed the moments that would otherwise slow down the film. Even though it only had a runtime of slightly less than 90 minutes, I still felt that it was long enough to be exciting and not horribly drawn-out. 

    With regards to the performances of the actors, I thought that everyone did a fairly decent job even if it was far from being perfect. Like, okay, obviously Iris has the most character because she's the protagonist, so by comparison the rest of the side characters were kind of one-dimensional. But for the sake of this concept, in the end it all kind of worked. I was surprised and delighted to see June Squib, as I loved her in Nebraska, and it was nice to watch her in a performance that was a little different from the one she happened to play in that movie. I will also note that Robb Wells appears in this film, who plays Ricky in Trailer Park Boys, but unfortunately for me it was hard to not see him as Ricky the entire time because his character here was really just a carbon copy of his performance on the show. I'm not saying that his performance was necessarily good or bad, just that it wasn't all that different from what I've seen him do before. 

    I will admit that there were a couple of issues with this film, mainly with the villain(s). I get that the actors were trying to be intentionally over-the-top and gimmicky, but at the same time, it didn't feel that believable in certain places. There were also parts of the villain's story arc that I felt needed a lot more exposition. For instance, the film takes the time to have this whole exchange between him and his son, and their dialogue has a lot of hints to certain backstory and offscreen elements, but it isn't really brought up again. Well, except for this one part where Iris is almost raped by the son, and Shepard Lambrick apologizes to her and mentions the death of his wife, though it ends up going nowhere and doesn't add anything to his character or his son's. But by far the thing that troubled me most was the ending (spoiler alert). I thought that it was building up nicely when Iris came home and showered, but then they decided to have her find her brother's dead body after he committed suicide, and the film just ends. Not to mention the completely inappropriate credits song that began playing as the camera pulled up! Note to other filmmakers: when you want the audience to feel horrified or sad, incorporating an upbeat alternative rock song is going to completely derail the entire tone of your film. And to be fair, it almost ruined the entire film for me. While I did think about the director's possible intention and wondered if it was supposed to symbolize self-sacrifice for the ones you love (thereby bringing the protagonist's central conflict to the forefront and reversing it against her), but if so, it certainly could've been done in a way that didn't feel so damned rushed or half-assed.

    Overall, the film was adept at managing its time and it succeeded in keeping my attention. It had a lot of issues, but since they are relatively minor, they probably won't seriously impede its entertainment value.

   Overall Rating: 6.5/10