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Kate Bosworth

Nona – Dream Trip Turns to Nightmare

December 7, 2018 by Darrel Manson Leave a Comment

Most of the Michael Polish film Nona seems like a dream. There are new young people who seem to have a wonderful life opening up for them. But for one of them this dream turns into a nightmare.

A young Honduran woman (Sulem Calderon) lives in a shanty town. She seems happy enough, but she is alone. When a rakish young man (Jesy McKinney) comes to town, she becomes fascinated by his attitude and free spirit. When he invites her to come north with him, she sees it as an opportunity to reconnect with her mother in the U.S. As the two travel through Guatemala and Mexico by car, bus, boat, and on foot, it seems like an idyllic and romantic time. They share their stories and it seems they could be falling in love.

But in the last quarter of the film, the story makes a sudden shift. They don’t cross the border together. Instead he hands her over to a coyote to smuggle her across while he goes through immigration. But the other side of the border is not what she expected or hoped for. She must now pay off her debt in a brothel.

The film is a strange combination of beauty and darkness. The journey brings many wonderful sights. But throughout the story there is a constant presence of death. The young woman says she “paints the dead”—she worked at a mortuary applying makeup to the bodies. She says that death is a big business in Honduras. He father and brother met violent deaths. She is used to seeing dead bodies in the street. We can understand her desire to find a better life.

There is also a religious undertone to the movie. Even before we meet the young man, we see him being prayed over by a street preacher. On their journey north, they stop in a church to pray. He tells her that Jesus saved his life. Is his faith just for show? Will her faith protect her from the dangers of this trip?

The last few minutes of the film has Kate Bosworth (who produced the film) as a detective who gives voice to the issues faced by victims of human trafficking. A title card at the end gives statistics about how many people are affected by trafficking, but the story of a single woman who becomes the face of human trafficking victims is more powerful that the numbers we see.

Filed Under: Film, Reviews Tagged With: Human Trafficking, Jesy McKinney, Kate Bosworth, Michael Polish, Sulem Calderon

The Long Road Home Ep. 4 – Faith in Uncertainty

November 27, 2017 by J. Alan Sharrer Leave a Comment

(Photo: National Geographic/Van Redin)

The situation in Sadr City wasn’t getting any better for the soldiers depicted in National Geographic’s The Long Road Home (Tuesdays 10 PM/9 PM CT and on demand).  In fact, it was getting significantly worse. All three platoons had come under heavy fire and numerous men have been injured or killed.  What do you do when the threat of death is pervasive in the air?

The fourth episode focused on Staff Sgt. Robert Miltenberger (Jeremy Sisto), who was called back to duty beyond his contract date (known as stop-lossing). He was portrayed in the earlier programs as a calm veteran who seems to have a laissez-faire attitude about the whole concept of war. In fact, that was far from the truth.  Miltenberger was on duty in Kosovo during an earlier tour of duty and watched helplessly as a woman carrying her dead baby walked directly towards him, then headed into a live minefield.  As a result, he had numerous dreams about the lady and developed a fatalistic outlook on the whole mission, even going so far as to write a letter his wife was supposed to find after he died in battle.

Miltenberger’s brigade in Iraq was dealing with numerous issues—notably driving into the middle of a city under attack with an unarmored vehicle and no radio communication (big no-nos). He sensed an ambush and got the squadron out of certain death, only to have the truck’s radiator crack a short while later.  While attempting a patch, he saw a group of unarmed residents—one who looked eerily like the lady he saw in Kosovo.  Was this a premonition of something?

As for the original platoon, led by Lt. Shane Aguero (EJ Bonilla), they were still hunkered down, but the militia against them was slowly closing in.  The soldiers were running out of ammunition and had no night vision gear as the sun slowly set.  You could sense fear in theiir eyes.  The head od the forces, Lt. Col. Volesky (Michael Kelly), had his life flash before his eyes after being trapped by insurgents, only to be spared at the last minute.  Some of the wounded, thankfully, were evacuated to base camp to receive treatment for their injuries.

(Photo: National Geographic/Van Redin)

Back in the US, the news outlets reported fighting in Sadr City, understandably causing the soldiers’ wives to panic. Gina Denomy (Kate Bosworth) and LeAnn Volesky (Sarah Wayne Callies) were the point people but were limited as to what could be shared due to Army regulations, infuriating some of the wives.  Lt. Aguero’s wife later learned of the attack, causing her son Elijah to run to his room and cry, “Dad’s going to die and it’s all my fault.”  It’s heartbreaking, considering his reaction to the deployment in the first episode. Uncertainty hangs in the air, with lots of men still in harm’s way and darkness closing in . . .

Though they’ve played a small role in the program, the army wives have fascinated me. They had unknown fears going into the deployment.  Some were new mothers while some were expecting a child in a matter of months.  All were trying to keep life as normal as possible–not only for their children, but for themselves.  When the news began reporting on the situation in Iraq, it understandably caused the wives to worry: Were there casualties?  If so, was my husband one of them?  If so, how am I going to live life without them by my side? If they’re hurt, can I deal with taking care of them, no matter what the injury (physical or mental)?   The hardest thing in those moments is faith–faith in God, faith in the commanders, faith that all will be okay. The Bible says faith is “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1 NASB).   That’s incredibly difficult for most of us in ordinary life, much less people in the military.  However, without faith in something to stand on, we just exist.  In the case of the military wives, faith is all they had to hold on to even with the swirling winds of conflicting news reports all about them.

Tomorrow evening’s episode will look at the situation in Sadr City from the eyes of an unlikely person—the interpreter.  It should be quite interesting.

Filed Under: Reviews, Television Tagged With: Army, death, EJ Bonilla, Faith, Gary Volesky, GIna Denomy, Hebrews, Iraq, Jeremy Sisto, Kate Bosworth, Kosovo, LeAnn Volesky, Michael Kelly, National Geographic, Robert Miltenberger, Sadr City, Sarah Wayne Callies, Shane Aguero, The Long Road Home, uncertainty

The Long Road Home Ep. 3: War Challenges

November 14, 2017 by J. Alan Sharrer Leave a Comment

Captain Troy Denomy has no clue his unit is about to be ambushed (Photo courtesy National Geographic).

When we last left the members of the First Calvary Division, Fort Hood in the National Geographic series The Long Road Home (Tuesdays 10PM/9 CT [note the time change] and on demand), two separate divisions of the brigade were heading into Sadr City to rescue an ambushed unit.  The third episode brings the viewer closer to the fighting—and it’s not pretty to watch.

First Lt. Shane Aguero (EJ Bonilla) and his men are attempting to hang on until rescuers arrive.  That means going back into harm’s way to retrieve flares to indicate their position to the other units.  The problems are many–first, the attack is well-conceived and each of the other units are walking into a trap.  In addition, the units are ill-prepared for conflict of this nature, be it communication (some vehicles have no radios), armor (one truck is completely open, leaving at least twelve soldiers in the line of potential fire), or experience (the fear some of the soldiers display is palpable). Camp War Eagle knows it’s not going to be pretty, so they start preparing a medical unit for treating injuries.  Problems exist there as well—their main doctor is a pediatrician and there are no units of blood available in case something happens.

Troy and Gina Denomy (Photo courtesy of National Geographic).

The focus of this episode is Captain Troy Denomy (Jason Ritter), who feels remorse for sending Aguero’s unit out and learning one of their own has died in the process.  He’s married to Gina (Kate Bosworth), who sits at home with a newborn while trying to recover from a C-Section.  Troy does what he’s been trained to do: rushing into the middle of the fray in order to rescue people. However, he soon finds his group pinned down as bullets rain through the sky, injuring himself and multiple members of his vehicle.

Gina knows being the head of the Family Readiness Group has its blessings as she finds out what’s happening before the rest of the wives.  Then again, it has its trials when she learns the team has been attacked. Because of her husband’s status, she knows Troy is going into harm’s way, but she no clue that he’s been wounded in battle.  However, she has to stay calm and let the rest of the wives know an attack has occurred–something nobody on base expected or wanted to occur.

I struggled with this episode, especially one scene where one of Aguero’s men keeps watch while on the top of a building.  He sees a young boy playing with a machine gun, then watches in horror as he points it directly at the soldier.  When the gun is fired, the soldier shoots the kid.  His father hears the commotion, sees what is going on, then takes up the gun to fight—he is also killed.  Finally, the grandfather grabs the gun and is killed.  There’s significant remorse in the soldier’s voice as he laments he killed three generations of a family.  In split-second decisions, how do you know what’s the right thing to do when neither option is truly acceptable?  This is where moral wounds arise.  I could imagine this being the reason why so many of the soldiers found a measure of comfort from the words of David in the Psalms.  Green pastures and still waters (Psalm 23:2-3) are a whole lot peaceful than desert sands and dry streams. But the soldiers have to be vigilant, knowing one wrong move could be their last.  That vigilance will be further tested in the next episode; that’s for sure.

Filed Under: Current Events, Reviews, Television Tagged With: Ambush, EJ Bonilla, First Calvary, Fort Hood, Gary Volesky, GIna Denomy, Jason Ritter, Kate Bosworth, Michael Kelly, Moral Injuries, National Geographic, Psalm 23, Sadr City, Shane Aguero, The Long Road Home, Troy Denomy, war

Heist: The Art of Misdirection

December 22, 2015 by Jacob Sahms Leave a Comment

heist

Robert De Niro. Jeffrey Dean Morgan. Kate Bosworth. Morris Chestnut. Gina Carano. Dave Bautista.

The cast list reads like a who’s who of good-but-not-great films that have littered the landscape of early spring and late summer. All of them have been in something spectacular, but bringing them all together echoes with the late-breaking career of Morgan Freeman as the set-up man. Heist (or Bus 657) is that kind of film about a blackjack dealing-father who needs the perfect heist to pay for his daughter’s expensive, non-insurance-covered operation.

Luke Vaughn (Morgan) knows he shouldn’t steal from “The Pope” (De Niro) but when heavy Cox (Bautista, sans makeup) lures him into robbing Pope’s casino and righthand man Derrick Prince (Chestnut), he is all in. Their robbery goes south (duh!) and they end up careening around on a bus driven by Bernie (D.B. Sweeney) with a setup straight out of Speed. However, local officer Kris Bajos (Carano) is in hot pursuit, and is soon joined by a suave Marconi (Mark-Paul Gosselaar). Vaughn and Cox (obviously) disagree on how to proceed, and the plot thickens aboard the bus.

All of this is pretty much what you would expect, like a Speedy Ocean’s Eleven without the humor. We’re warned several times that things are not what they seem but unfortunately, they seem so obvious that the ‘sleight of hand’ was telegraphed well before the big reveal. I don’t know if this is the result of a poor script, or poor direction, but the crew deserved better.

And then there’s the human interest level, as if the kid in the hospital bed motif wasn’t enough: we’re supposed to believe that The Pope really, really badly wishes he had made better life decisions and he wants to go straight. Or at least he wants a shot at conning his completely empathetic daughter (Kate Bosworth) into believing he can go straight, which changes the whole dynamic of the film. I am all for redemptive story arcs, and Bosworth nails the paltry five minutes that she’s given here, but the transition is so jarring that I thought I must’ve missed something. (I had not.)

Fortunately, each piece by each actor is pretty solid. Bautista has my attention after Guardians of the Galaxy and Spectre; I’m already a fan of Bosworth and Morgan. But the real misdirection seems to be in thinking that there was going to be an emotional payoff for the audience that just wasn’t there. I’m disappointed, really.

The trailer had me fooled.

Filed Under: DVD, Film, Reviews Tagged With: Dave Bautista, Gina Carano, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Kate Bosworth, Morris Chestnut, Robert De Niro

90 Minutes In Heaven: What Comes Next Matters Now

September 11, 2015 by Jacob Sahms Leave a Comment

90minutesbridge

Most films culminate in a big screen moment, whether it’s the dramatic reunion of long lost loved ones or the explosive battle royale. 90 Minutes in Heaven is that rare film that starts at the end, and then moves forward to what comes after that. Under the artful direction of Michael Polish (Big Sur), Hayden Christensen and Kate Bosworth play Don and Eva Piper, the real-life couple whose experiences inspire the film. Based on the Pipers’ memoirs, 90 Minutes in Heaven and A Walk in the Dark, the film asks how we’re supposed to move forward when we’ve seen heaven but our world is so broken?

In 1988, returning from a pastors’ conference on a rain-soaked day, Don Piper was crushed by a truck. Pronounced dead in the scene, Piper is revived when a passerby feels called to pray for him. While Piper has a wonderful recollection of heaven, complete with hope-inspiring light and long-dead relatives, his earthly reality is excruciating and fragmented. Doctors try to put Piper back together while his wife and friends try to pick up the pieces of their lives and ministry.

I’ll leave what exactly Piper saw and how we respond to that for ourselves to other reviews. [I’m sure that a number of people will be happy to chime in about its ‘reliability’ or not.] I don’t think that is what the movie is really about. Polish set out to tell us what it was like for Piper’s body to be crushed by the truck and his soul to be fragmented by the pain … and the absence of his pure experience. While Heaven Is For Real became bogged down with its attempt to show us what heaven was like from a toddler’s perspective, heaven itself is a blip on 90 Minutes’ radar. What Polish is most concerned with here is how the Pipers move forward and how it impacts others.

You probably can ascertain, even if you’ve never read the book, that the Pipers’ story has made a difference. You just don’t make a movie about an event from thirty years ago if it didn’t matter! The truth is that Piper’s story, “hope is attainable and God loves you,” has reached millions in its book form. With a film version, the Pipers’ story should reach tens of millions.

90minutesWhile some movies make their message the main thing, eschewing skill and filmmaking for preachy narrative, 90 Minutes makes us believe that hope is possible because the Pipers’ story is remarkably dark and yet they rise above it. Christensen is superb as a broken man; Bosworth’s portrayal of Eva proves this humble woman’s resolve and deep, deep faith. The film itself proves funny, lyrical (stand up, Michael W. Smith!), and inspiring, without ever settling for a vanilla, naive look at pain and suffering.

A few days ago, I wrote in my review of The Age of Adaline that “If we’re honest with ourselves, we have questions about what happens next. In the next five minutes, the next five years, in the next … hereafter. Our fiction reflects this, as we read stories and watch movies about people who live forever, people who create technology to extend life, and people who come back from death.” 90 Minutes is a ripped-from-the-headlines experience that says we do know what comes next because the Bible tells us so.

Using John 14 as a snapshot of what Jesus had to say about the future (heaven, the kingdom of God, etc.), we can see that he had a pretty spectacular place in mind for us with God but he also said we were supposed to live a certain way here. Jesus promised the Holy Spirit, and he told us to take hope even in the midst of things we can’t understand or which trouble us. Sure, Don Piper came back with a story of heaven, but 90 Minutes implies (strongly) that it matters how we live in the here and now.

Don’s recovery is physical, spiritual, and emotional; Eva’s growth occurs because she refuses to let go of her husband, even when he is pushing her away. It’s a powerful narrative that explores life after death, but it also pulls back the curtain on a troubling time in the Pipers’ marriage that we all can learn from.

Suffering is complicated and nearly guaranteed as part of life, but faith brings joy and peace in the midst of this, the hope in things we can’t see. Don Piper’s story of what he saw gave him hope and the resolve to tell others that they should hope, too. And cinematically, that is delivered in a dramatic, emotional retelling of the Pipers’ grace and strength.

For more on the film, check out our interview with the real-life couple, Michael Polish and Kate Bosworth, here. 

Filed Under: Editorial, Featured, Film, Reviews Tagged With: 90 Minutes In Heaven, A Walk in the Dark, Big Sur, Don Piper, Eva Piper, Hayden Christensen, Kate Bosworth, Michael Polish, Michael W. Smith

Michael Polish & Kate Bosworth On Marriage, 90 Minutes In Heaven, & The Dallas Cowboys

September 7, 2015 by Jacob Sahms Leave a Comment

bosworth polishIn August, over the course of seventy-two hours, I watched the fascinating (and creepy) thriller Amnesiac, followed by the based-on-a-memoir biopic 90 Minutes From Heaven. I quickly realized that even though the two films were wildly different, they both starred the effervescent Kate Bosworth under the direction of her husband, director Michael Polish. So, I did what any inquisitive film critic would do.

I stalked Michael Polish and Kate Bosworth on Twitter.

Looking at that sentence in black and white, it resembles the vibe of  Amnesiac more than that of 90 Minutes In Heaven. Still, Polish graciously worked to set up the phone call. Would a movie star and a top-flight director really volunteer their time to discuss their films, I wondered, having been stood up by lesser lights who never actually showed up?

Just a few weeks later, I found myself talking with the couple from their home in Montana. An hour later, we had covered both of their aforementioned movies, the Dallas Cowboys, graphic novels, and future projects. Call me convinced: Polish and Bosworth love each other deeply, and are wildly passionate about what they do.

On the way home from Ann Arbor, Michigan, after shooting a television series for Crackle, Polish proposed that they drive across the high line states on their way back to Montana, and share the story of 90 Minutes in Heaven with journalists in small towns along the way.

90 Minutes In Heaven is the story of Pastor Don Piper, who was killed in an automobile accident in 1988 but who came back to life hours later. Coming soon to theaters (September 11), the film stars Hayden Christiensen as Piper, and Bosworth as his wife, Eva. I asked the couple if working together was hard, and they were quick to share that they loved the collaboration. “I think we’re doing two different things,” Polish said. “The main projects we’re working on rely on each other’s talents. I can’t do what she does!”

amnesiacIn Amnesiac (available now On Demand), Bosworth plays the Woman who holds the Man (Wes Bentley) hostage, while trying to create (or recreate) the idea of family dynamics she longs for. It’s violent, chilling, and ultimately more psychological than the average thriller being churned out lately. As such, the camera lingers on Bosworth as the central actor in a film that messes with our minds, just as 90 Minutes challenges our expectations of reality and faith.

So with 90 Minutes and Amnesiac , how did they actually end up on the same film? “Kate was sent Amnesiac and looked at it for awhile, and approached me about whether or not I was interested,” Polish remembered. “With 90 Minutes, I received the book and asked her if she was interested in [playing Eva]. Because Don’s book doesn’t have as much to do with her perspective, I gave her Eva’s book, A Walk Through The Dark.”

The dynamics between the Pipers are the force behind the film, shown in the weeks and months after Don’s body is crushed in a horrific car accident. Pronounced dead on the scene, Piper comes back to life after a passing minister prays for him, but his rehabilitation is physical, mental, and spiritual. It’s not your ‘typical’ docudrama or faith-based film, but it is a powerful narrative.

Showing everything that made the story incredible and captivating was hard, given the extent to which most of the experience Don had was only witnessed by him. “We tried to hone in on their unique experience in one and a half hours,” laughed Bosworth. “It’s hard to convey all of the feeling they had through their six months or so of dealing with Don’s recuperation. Eva dealt with her husband for all of those months, grunting, not speaking, not looking at her. This wasn’t the man she married, and it was hard to deal with. But in the moment when he finally shares with her what he experienced in heaven, she told me that she felt this incredible relief.”

“There was a burden Don wasn’t able to share, and when he finally did, it helped Eva understand why he had treated her that way. I think it was a relief, a stress removed, for both of them and their whole family.

When I mentioned that the film showed how powerful of a role Eva played, that in fact, I thought she was the hero of the film, Polish pushed back, gently. “It’s amazing to be with Don and see all of the pain he must have been through, and is still going through all these years later,” he shared. “I don’t know that he ever saw me but I watched him get in and out of the car, and it would take him twenty minutes. He was always in pain but he never complained. What he deals with on a regular, daily basis, and then to be pushed into the spotlight, he’s just incredible.”

90minutes“Hearing Don’s story, it’s obvious that he has seen something so wonderful that he’d rather be there in heaven than here,” Polish continued. “Every day, he wants to be in heaven. For someone so loving and honest to share that story and be vehement about wanting to go back, it makes it real. But it’s my job as the director to convey it legitimately, not to prove that it’s true.”

We bounced back and forth between 90 Minutes and Amnesiac throughout our conversation, but having seen both so close together, I couldn’t help but see some of the similarities. “You are probably the only journalist to have seen them both like that!” exclaimed Polish. “The characters in both films have this perspective that forms their reality. Movies are about make believe but you alter reality as soon as you make the first edit. I get to play the painter and create this world, based on the psychological perspective in the person’s head that allows their actions to speak for themselves.”

“The Woman in Amnesiac is trying to create her own reality from her own ‘religion’ or belief system, I’m sure she would yearn to have the sort of family dynamic that the Pipers did in the film.”

“Don would probably say he was held captive to some extent, like Wes,” interjected Bosworth, and we followed the train of thought until we explored moments that I deem ‘spoilers’ and can’t share here. It should be noted that the two are self-aware to know what they risk by making a film that some would categorize, label, and box in as “faith based.”

“There’s definitely a stigma because films that have come before this one have allowed preaching to overshadow the craft,” Polish mused. “We think that the cinematography should embrace the message, so for me, it’s not as much a Christian movie as it is a movie that has a Christian as its central character.”

90minuteskateI admit that I was psychologically flinching at the thought of watching another film where someone told me how they viewed heaven, citing Heaven is For Real as a film that hadn’t quite captured my attention positively. Polish was quick to point out that he’d had the same qualms about making a film like 90 Minutes.

“I had that moment, that thought, every time I went to put that part of the story into action,” Polish said. “There’s a version of heaven I think of sometimes, in Montana, with Kate on one side of a white picket fence with a glass of whiskey telling me how happy she is to see me, but I think that’s the director’s Manifest Destiny.”

“I didn’t want it to be a Hallmark card, but I wanted there to be a beautiful vagueness about it. I think there’s a responsibility to scripture and people’s understanding of it for thousands of years. Honestly, I wanted to portray the greatest family reunion possible, just one that might not be as physical as we’d imagine it.”

Family. Faith. Filmmaking. These are things that define the Polish/Bosworth marriage, not just of two people, but of ideas and collaborations. They haven’t followed the ‘typical’ Hollywood journey; their path to getting to this moment is just too original. They’re making decisions about what to star in or direct, what to produce and make for themselves, based on their experiences and where they’ve come from, and what they’ve learned together.

Bosworth was born in Los Angeles, moved around to wherever her father’s job in retail with Talbot’s took them. By ten, she was in Connecticut; through high school, she was educated on the south shore of Boston. Deferring an offer from Princeton to follow her acting dream, she auditioned for various gigs at eighteen in Los Angeles and landed Blue Crush, Wonderland, and a little film called Superman Returns. Polish and Bosworth met during the filming of Big Sur in 2011, based on Jack Kerouac’s novel about his (mis)adventures with Billie Dabney. Polish directed and Bosworth starred as Dabney to Jean-Marc Barr’s Kerouac, but the two discussed enough of their craft on and off set to begin a deeper relationship. Polish had already made his mark at Sundance (Northfork) and written a book called The Declaration of Independent Filmmaking, and their passion for filmmaking cemented the bond.

Married two years ago in August, the two now split their time between a home in Montana next door to Polish’s family and Los Angeles. Somehow, Montana isn’t the normal place for Hollywood types, but that didn’t stop these two from calling it home. While Polish’s father, a retired pilot, was born and raised in Montana, the two moved into a house next door recently, and now exist in what Bosworth joked was the family compound.

“It’s important for us to gain a perspective outside of the business,” Bosworth said. “We have to be able to see the forest for the trees, to gain a pure perspective of life and clear our minds. That’s hard to do in the midst of the tornado.”

90minutesbridgeNow, the two of them will spend the next few weeks promoting 90 Minutes In Heaven and preparing for the various projects awaiting them this fall. Bosworth has wrapped shooting on The Art of More with Dennis Quaid; Polish is working on developing the script for a film based on The Year of Fog. I had to ask then, doesn’t the weight of these heavy characters ever bog their relationship down?

Bosworth laughed, while Polish shared, “We have a lot of humor in our family. Even in a film where there’s a bucket of blood, our joke about Amnesiac, the minute we yell ‘cut,’ we can go back to being more playful. We know we’re making entertainment and we can balance what’s serious with the humor.”

So, how about moving forward? Will we see them work together again? Can I dare suggest that Bosworth do another superhero film with Polish directing? “I would love to do something like that!” Polish said, warming to the topic. “I don’t know if they’d go for it, but I’d like something like Alex Ross’ Kingdom Come. They seem to be moving younger and younger, but maybe they’ll get tired of it and decide to use this treasure of superheroes as they’ve aged. Of course, we had the funny version with The Incredibles, right?”

“I liked The Vigilante,” Polish continued, “and Concrete. I love the artwork of those comics that have beautiful ways of telling their stories.”

But would Bosworth re-up, play a Lois Lane or superhero again?

“I always look for characters in any genre who are intriguing,” she replied, carefully. “I don’t want anything two-dimensional, but I’m looking for characters more enriched, and grounded in a world that could be.”

“I like realistic fairytale worlds, that you could actually imagine going to; we both like the work of Neil Gaiman. I loved the idea of magic as a child, of the stories of Walt Disney, and I think that’s why people still like the movies.”

I’ll be the first one in line when they make that movie, whatever it is, and having spent some time with this rare Hollywood couple, I’ll be rooting for them to ride off into the sunset together.

Happily ever after.

Filed Under: Current Events, Editorial, Featured, Film, Interviews, News, Reviews Tagged With: 90 Minutes In Heaven, Amnesiac, Concrete, Dallas Cowboys, Don Piper, Eva Piper, Kate Bosworth, Michael Polish, Superman Returns, The Vigilante

Amnesiac: Who Tells You Who You Are?

August 14, 2015 by Jacob Sahms Leave a Comment

bosworth in amnesiacIn a creepy, surreal thriller directed by Michael Polish (Astronaut Farmer, 90 Minutes From Heaven), a man awakens after a car accident to find himself without memories and locked in a house by a woman who demands he provide her with a child. Wes Bentley (Hunger Games, Interstellar) plays “Man” and Kate Bosworth (Still Alice, Home Front) plays “Woman,” his would-be wife, in a film that plays with memories and ideals, while terrorizing us at the same time.

Bosworth is completely outside of ‘type’ here, portraying the creepiest character to grace (is that even the right word?) an amnesiac movie, or even a hostage-type movie (Misery, anyone?) that we’ve seen in some time. At first, we’re not sure what to make of her dripping, creepy whispers, or the way we assume that the house must be set in some kind of retrofitted state. We spend a good part of the film figuring that Man could be imprisoned in some place where no one would ever find him, like the wilderness. Slowly, however, we’re let in on some pieces of the puzzle, yet not enough to make much sense of his situation.

What we can clearly understand is that Woman is crazy – not just delusional, but homicidal and twisted in a way that will make you want to scream. The piano music and the otherwise muted tones of the backgrounds accentuate the creepy factor of Bosworth’s nut job of a character. Somehow we are aware that things can’t quite be what they appear, but we don’t quite know what we’re watching.

bentley in amnesiacIf you mixed in Memento with a batch of Before I Go To Sleep, you’d get Amnesiac. It’s significantly less complicated than the first, and better nuanced than the second, but the end result is justifiably watchable. It helps that “Man” is our viewpoint into “Woman’s” world, but he doesn’t know who or what she is. Furthermore, that raises several issues that make bigger questions about the universe come into play, like …

Who tells us what the truth is?

What does our ‘blank slate’ of who we are start with?

What makes us who we are or provides us with the identity that holds us together and drives us forward?

car in amnesiacIt seems like there’s often plenty of room for figuring out who we are, but most of us are quick to let other people make the decisions for us. For example, we might decide we’ll listen to, say, the Biblical scriptures of Genesis, that are held valuable by the Christians and the Jews – we’re made in the image of God and spirit is breathed into us. Or we might allow ourselves to be drawn in by the media, the self-help books, or … whatever. What do we decide is true and who guides us to that truth?

That’s the big question of Amnesiac, wrapped up in a disturbing little horror tale that just might blow your mind in the process.

Filed Under: Featured, Film, Reviews Tagged With: Kate Bosworth, Michael Polish

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