My Own Little World

It’s rare when I have a cinematic experience that truly shocks me to my core because of a film being outside of the box. That shouldn’t be the case, but often the movies I prioritize seeing are made for the sake of making money and not to primarily send a message to its audience. This film, however, is something completely different. Boots Riley’s directorial debut Sorry to Bother You is a wild, wild ride that aims to be a protest of the systemic oppression of the fundamental truths of capitalism, albeit taken to extreme places. Its allegorical nature makes it bold and forward with its message, but its method of getting that message across is highly effective. What will make or break this film for somebody watching it is how they handle its extremely literal nature. Sorry to Bother You makes no efforts to hide its message; in the naming of its characters, the parts they will eventually play in the story are often revealed (the pro-union character is named Squeeze, the pro...

I grew up watching Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood more mornings than not. My mom probably remembers it better than I do, but from what I can recall I loved the show in my early childhood. In retrospect, Fred Rogers’s demeanor was probably a big part of that; the man was warm, compassionate, and more sophisticated than many of the other main characters of the other shows I watched alongside his. One of the questions that has sat in my mind about Rogers, though, is whether he was like the man on the show. To have that kind of demeanor in everyday life would completely shock me in the cynical, jaded world in which we live. The documentary on Rogers’s life Won’t You Be My Neighbor? answers this question of many with a resounding “yes.” This film is overwhelmingly optimistic yet not without a sense of grounded realism that Rogers himself possessed. It feels exactly like Fred Rogers the character which, it asserts quite confidently, was Fred Rogers the man. Instead of focusing ...

There is something about Wes Anderson’s filmmaking that ensnares me. I cannot say if it is his meticulous method, his whimsical and dry humor, or his ability to tell parable-like stories about human nature; whatever the case, his unique technique makes me love every single one of his films – even the lesser ones are still highly enjoyable.  Isle of Dogs is no different in that respect; the film's style has the same overtly charming effect on me as all of Anderson's other works. I reveled in the experience of seeing one of his films in a theater for the first time. My question going into the film was what Isle of Dogs would do to make itself different from the other films in Anderson's catalog and whether those differences would benefit or hinder the   final product. The biggest difference is the setting; Anderson has not set any of his films in the Far East yet, the closest being The Darjeeling Limited in India. Placing the story in Japan with many Japanese char...

I was raised in a conservative evangelical Christian household in a suburb-like small city. Currently, I am pursuing a degree at a moderate Christian university for the purpose of pursuing a career in full-time church work and have worked in churches for this summer and the previous two. In the past couple years since going to school, I have experienced several crises of juxtaposition in my faith, pitting beliefs I have had since I was a child against a more “liberal” or “secular” understanding and being surprised when realizing that the two were not contrary but could be complementary. The juxtaposition at the crux of this wrestling has been that between faith and doubt, how the opposite of faith is not doubt but certainty (or, more damningly, self-sufficiency). I say this to show why a film like First Reformed resonated with every fiber of my being. It is a treatise on the difference between facades of authenticity and the real thing, and it uses the supposed tension between...

Upgrade really, really, really tries to be smart. It knows that it has the confines of a familiar story arc of a man seeking revenge for the killing of his wife. It knows it has a small budget which means it cannot do anything too ambitious. It knows that it needs to have an aesthetic like films much more intelligent and meaningful than itself. Upgrade knows something else, too: it has a get-out-of-jail-free card inside the mind of its protagonist. And that makes it one of the laziest films I have seen this year. STEM, the computer implanted in the protagonist Grey’s spinal cord, can do whatever it wants to with Grey’s body if he gives it permission to do so. We see this happen near the beginning of the second act in a fight scene that caught me by surprise with its tone and fun cinematography, both of which were altered dramatically from the moments before it. As scenes like this began to make a pattern, however, my mind began to see how the script was using STEM as...

Horror films have two main ways of scaring their audiences. The more conventional option is to hold the audience in suspense by what they do not see coming, scaring the audience by the surprise factor of the scare itself. This is an easy, no-risk way of building tension that many good mainstream horror films put to frequent but satisfying use. The less-utilized method, and my favorite, is by telegraphing what is going to happen and let the audience fear come from the knowledge of the inevitable or from the danger most likely to come. This requires far more skill to execute properly, but when done so – a la Stanley Kubrick’s immortal classic The Shining – there is an ambiguity to the audience’s fear that makes the whole film creepy and unsettling because there is no indication to whether something should be feared. Hereditary falls firmly into the latter category, and that is why it is the most disturbing horror film I have seen in quite some time. It uses almost no cheap ...

What a ride. What a dark, depressing, riveting ride. I had very few expectations going into You Were Never Really Here . The story, characters, and aim – all were mysteries to me. After seeing it, I have never been happier that that has been the case. This film is shocking, brutal, and just an overall rough emotional experience. It also tells a story of sex trafficking that is too real to be ignored, and my guess is that is the main point this movie tries to get across. You Were Never Really Here mirrors themes of and comments on some recent events in the news like the #MeToo and Time’s Up movements, focusing on how the rich and powerful can do anything they want to just about anybody – (horrifyingly) including 13-year-old girls. I was almost brought to tears several times in this hour and twenty-five-minute film because I realized how unfortunately realistic this story might be. The film has a great voice behind it in Lynne Ramsay’s direction. She often takes a slower han...

Lean on Pete is somehow bleak yet beautiful. I was taken aback by how brutal this film is to its protagonist. Charley’s life as shown in the film does not start too great, and when life begins to hit him with blow after blow, taking one thing he loves after another away from him, it begins to become almost depressing. By the end of the film, Charley has almost nothing to continue living for – and the fact that he is just fifteen years old and has seen more life than most middle-aged adults I know makes that all the more heartbreaking. He finds a companion in the titular Pete for a while, becoming attached to this aging racehorse; and when he takes Pete’s future into his own hands and runs away with him, it is done with such poeticism and such little dialogue that makes it resonate incredibly well. As good as the film continues to be after that moment, Lean on Pete begins to show its flaws not long after. As events transpire on Charley and Pete’s journey, everything starts...

One of the hardest things for any film to do is to be human. True humanity is extremely hard to capture in the pre-planned conversations of a script or in the often-visionary lens of a director’s camera. Even going to such lengths as filming the same cast over twelve years (looking at you, Boyhood ) does not guarantee that a movie can be a true slice of life. Somehow, some way, Greta Gerwig, in her first film in the director’s chair no less, has made one of the most genuinely human films I have ever seen. Lady Bird is an organic piece of cinematic art that doesn’t try to be terribly artistically original or innovative; it simply tells a human coming-of-age story, and it does it better than nearly any other film I have seen. As much as I’d love to claim that there is no one aspect of the film that helps this, ultimately the film rests on the shoulders of its cast. Without the amazing performances from Saoirse Ronan, Laurie Metcalf, Lucas Hedges, and everyone else involved, t...

In 2004, a little band from Las Vegas called The Killers released their first album, Hot Fuss . It rocked the landscape of alternative music, with singles like "Mr. Brightside," "Somebody Told Me," and "All These Things That I've Done" still being played on alt rock stations to this day. That album very much feels like a complete collection of songs and not just like a few tracks slapped together into a record. The same can be said of that album's slightly lesser successor Sam's Town . As The Killers have continued their career, they have never really been able to replicate the coherence of their first two albums. For me, that's a really big deal: album flow is one of the things I look for the most in my music. Without a good flow, albums become haphazard and feel less polished to my ears and severely degrade in quality. Thankfully, guys, Wonderful Wonderful  is an album that feels like an album. The flow here is much, much smoother t...

John Mark McMillan is the most famous guy you've never heard of in Christian music. Since penning the modern classic "How He Loves," he has largely lived in the small-but-active indie sector of Christian music, working his way from alternative rock on his debut The Song inside the Sounds of Breaking Down  all the way to folk-tinged indie on his last effort Borderland . That last one made me fall in love with the man's writing style and his ability to weave seamlessly between complexity and simplicity while never losing lyrical meaning (if you want an example, go listen to "Future/Past"). Because of Borderland , I preordered Mercury & Lightning  in January. Yes, that's over seven months ago. I have been sitting on pins and needles ever since, waiting to hear how McMillan would continue his stellar career. From where he was on his last project, Mercury & Lightning  feels like a natural progression musically. McMillan continues on his Springst...

Kings Kaleidoscope is literally (in Chris Traeger's voice) the best thing that ever happened to my taste in music. They partially restored my faith in Christian music's ability to be good (not an easy thing to do for me). Their only two full-length albums have gotten perfect scores from me, and one of them is even in my top 5 albums of all time. Some people would argue I have a massive bias towards them and their music. To a point, I agree: I am biased towards Kings Kaleidoscope's material. Here's the thing, though: it's actually that good.  More so than almost any other artist in Christian music, they blend musical ingenuity with superb songwriting and lyricism. Their debut flipped the switch on a new generation of worship music, while their sophomore effort progressed their sound into a relatively sparser palette while also shifting their aim from worship music to music for the Christian life. Continuing their near-perfect catalog is their latest release, Th...

Over the past several years, I've really grown to love Hillsong United. Their 2013 and 2015 releases, Zion  and Empires , respectively, have made me regain hope for the worship music industry, proving that mainstream worship music can actually be well-written and musically conscious. That being said, I was really looking forward to whatever they did next and was surprised when they announced Wonder  less than a month ago for release this weekend. The title track was so ridiculously infectious that, despite some slightly vague lyrics, I couldn't help but put it on repeat as I waited for the other tracks to be released. I don't know if it was my wild anticipation or my high expectations, but Wonder  actually lacks a little bit of enchantment now that I've listened to it in its entirety a couple of times. United has done a great job over the past couple of years of carefully cultivating a specific sound for each of their releases, with Zion  being extremely energe...

In closing the door on 2016, I realize that there are a lot of films that I have seen that unfortunately I was unable to review for one reason or another. That doesn't mean, however, that I don't want you guys to know what I think of most of these films, so just like the last couple of years I will be doing a few posts over the next month or so wrapping up all of the films I got a chance to see from this past year. This time around, I've got an unexpected sequel that's not really a sequel, a weird but stellar indie flick, and Natalie Portman... 10 Cloverfield Lane  - Buy it.  10 Cloverfield Lane is one of the best thrillers I've seen in the past several years. It builds tension incredibly well between good and bad, truth and lies, and character vs. character. John Goodman and Mary Elizabeth Winstead are fantastic and give very believable performances in their respective roles. Dan Trachtenberg's direction is stunningly good for a first-timer as well. Ju...

A couple years ago, I got hit with this infectious bug from this song called "My Type." It had a ton of soul, swagger, and just made me want to dance. The band behind this infectious indie pop gem goes by the name of Saint Motel, and as I dove into their discography, I began to see that "My Type" wasn't just a one-trick pony: they had a ton more in their catalog to enjoy. Their debut full-length from 2012, Voyeur , had that same indie party pop vibe that I enjoyed so much from "My Type" while also showing a little bit of an expanded palette at times. It wasn't perfect, but it was incredibly enjoyable. Fast forward to today. I've been waiting for a new release from Saint Motel ever since I finished listening to their back catalog, and this Friday saintmotelevision  is getting released to the world. But does it live up to the hype, and will it please people like me who fell head over heels in love with their older work? The answer to both o...

Kings Kaleidoscope is one of the rare bands in Christian music that isn't afraid to do whatever they want. Looking at their discography makes this plainly obvious. In addition to recording church-focused worship music (most of it from their days at Mars Hill Church in Seattle), they have also created what I cite as one of the most game-changing albums in all of Christian music, their full-length debut Becoming Who We Are . It combined the sonic complexities of the incredibly dense indie rock created by bands like Broken Social Scene, The Polyphonic Spree, and Arcade Fire with incredibly poignant, heartfelt, vertical lyrics. Here's the question, though: how do you follow that absolutely perfect, widely acclaimed monstrosity? Well, in Beyond Control , Kings Kaleidoscope has given us the answer, and I don't know if it's the one that everyone (especially me) was expecting. You see, one of the things I loved about Becoming Who We Are  is its sonic density and complex...

Whenever a lead vocalist of a band I love releases a solo side project, the results are always very interesting. Jon Foreman of Switchfoot has released a lot of solo material recently that is so different from what Switchfoot does as a band, yet it still works incredibly well. On the other hand, you have other people like Dustin Kensrue of Thrice who remain mostly unchanged in their solo material. In other words, it's interesting to see where the visible heart and soul of a band goes in its spare time. Enter Zach Bolen, frontman of the band Citizens & Saints. After two studio releases of indie rock with a worship slant, he's ready to release this set of nine tracks to the world after 12 years of writing and polishing. The question is, how did it turn out? Honestly, this is one of the coolest sounding albums I've heard all year. 1001  is definitely a departure from the more electronically-tinged work that Bolen did with Citizens & Saints, and it's also ...

Over the past several years, music has been undergoing a return to roots at the same time as it has been going forward. Folk music is back in the limelight, with groups like Mumford and Sons and solo artists like Vance Joy and Sufjan Stevens providing a renaissance of sorts to the genre. Of course, besides the countless radio singles Mumford has brought to the table, The Lumineers are probably the best-known group in this new folk revival, with their smash hit "Ho Hey" from their debut self-titled album. However, recently a question has arisen within this group of artists: where do we go from here? Many of these bands it seems have two choices: stay the same or go to a different genre. Some listeners are having a little bit of folk fatigue, it seems, so artists are being forced to consider which direction they should go. Now, The Lumineers' first album was a little bit of fresh air even within its own genre because of its incredibly bare-bones recording techniques...

I'm back once again with another Christmas album for you all. This week is something a lot more contemporary than Bing Crosby's White Christmas  and is a good choice for you indie music lovers: The Modern Post's Lowborn King . I first heard of The Modern Post after getting familiar with Thrice frontman Dustin Kensrue's solo projects. I discovered this side project of his through some fellow Christian indie music fans, and gave their EP Grace Alone  a spin about a year ago. I was completely wowed with both the sound and the lyrics, as it gave the EP a very aggressive reverence.  So when it came to looking for Christmas music this year, Lowborn King  was near the top of my list of what I wanted to explore. It's quite safe to say that The Modern Post doesn't disappoint here either, evolving their sound ever so slightly while still bringing that same aggressive reverence that I loved on Grace Alone .  Lowborn King  is another  EP, which I hav...

Very few bands have struck me the way Ghost Ship did with their debut The Good King . The production was minimalist to a fault, their Americana stylings meshed in a weird but good way with their indie rock base, and the lyrics struck me as oddly theologically rooted. I liked, but couldn't love. Now, two years after their debut, Ghost Ship is back to prove that their debut's success wasn't a fluke with their sophomore effort, Costly . Right away, I can tell that the production quality has greatly improved. While I usually consider this a flaw for folksier music like this, for Ghost Ship it works because of their odd style mash-up of indie rock and Americana. I felt like The Good King  was very weighted throughout because of its hollow production that focused my ears on the lyrics too much. On Costly , not only is the sound blended better, but it's changed quite a bit as well. It's progressed from an indie rock sound with occasional folk elements to something re...