YESTERDAY IS HISTORY, TOMORROW IS A MYSTERY // A FILM REVIEW OF "LAST NIGHT IN SOHO"

BY MATEO MORENO

Edgar Wright has made a career of making cool films. And I don't mean "cool films," the kind of films that only film school kids seek out and seem to alienate everyone else. His films are made for everyone and they just are cool, period. Stylish and sleek, beautifully shot and uniquely different, Wrights filmography runs the gamut of styles and genres. His latest is LAST NIGHT IN SOHO, which he co-wrote with Krysty Wilson-Cairns. SOHO has the pulse of Baby Driver or Scott Pilgrim but adds in a fresh, strange and intriguing blend of retro and time travel. It also hopes around genres within itself, making it a wild ride indeed.

Thomasin McKenzie is Eloise, a student who is studying fashion design and has recently moved to London from the country. He grandmother worries about her but is also excited to see her pursue her dreams. Once there, she immediately butts heads with her catty roommate and the Heather-like crew around her. Not wanting to stay in that environment, she gets a place of her own, which also means she has to get a job so that she can afford the extra expense. This might have turned out as simply a young woman trying to find her place in the world in an ordinary story, but Eloise is no ordinary person. She begins having very vivid dreams (or are they visions?) concerning an aspiring singer Sandie (Anya Taylor-Joy) who decades earlier lived in the same exact apartment that Eloise is now renting. She's dazzled by these visions of yesteryear. The glamour of the nightclubs and clothes, the way people spoke, the dedication of Sandy to be heard. She's taken adrift by this world that she sees around her. Eloise herself even finds herself changing, becoming someone new altogether. But just as when we often idolize days gone past, we don't immediately recognize the darkness hiding within the shadows. And the 1960's had plenty of that. Soon, the bright candy colored palette begins to wash away and the gritter and sadder truth sinks through. On top of all of that, a murder mystery begins to unfold in front of her, one that happened years ago and one that only she can solve decades later.

There's a lot of twists and turns in LAST NIGHT IN SOHO and it would be ruining the fun to reveal any of those here. So I won't. What I will say is that Wright has crafted a fast paced and delectable crime thriller. The beautiful cinematography, by Chung-hoon Chung (who also crafted the marvelous shots in the original Oldboy and the It remake), and the fantastic costume design by Odile Dicks-Mireaux, visually catapults the film far and above those around it. McKenzie is a great window into the world. Her performance is raw and vulnerable, fragile but strong. She makes quite an impression here. Taylor-Joy is dynamic as the lady from the past, radiant and vibrant, showing off her dancing and vocal chops as well (her voice can even be heard on the soundtrack). Matt Smith chews up the scenery nicely as the mysteriously suave man who may be able to help Sandy reach her own dreams. And I have to mention the one-two punch of casting Diana Rigg and Terence Stamp, two legends of cool in their own right. Wright directs with a flourishing charm, jumping from the past to the present with dizzying ease. Not all of the film works perfectly, though what doesn't is overpowered by the sheer style and boldness of the film, and the mystery and horror roots seem to jump from the seams. I found that it even grew more and more on me after I left the cinema. Sure, I could have stood a bit more depth in the characters, a bit more history into what makes them tick. But that's a minor quibble among the dizzying storytelling on the screen here. It's bold and exciting and the perfect tonight for a night out at the cinema.

GRADE: A-

WRITTEN BY Edgar Wright, Krysty Wilson-Cairns DIRECTED BY Edgar Wright STARRING Thomasin McKenzie, Anya Taylor-Joy, Matt Smith, Diana Rigg, Michael Ajao, Rebecca Harrod. OPENS OCTOBER 29TH IN THEATRES EVERYWHERE. FOR MORE INFO: LAST NIGHT IN SOHO

WASTED YOUTH // A FILM REVIEW OF "HERE ARE THE YOUNG MEN"

BY MATEO MORENO

Set in 2003, HERE ARE THE YOUNG MEN, which is based on the 2014 novel of the same name, is a stylistic, punk fueled ode to lost youth and the struggle to face a fastly approaching adulthood. The film centers around three Irish friends who have just left school - Matthew (Dean-Charles Chapman), Kearney (Finn Cole) and Rez (Ferdia Walsh-Peelo). Those who are familiar with the novel will note immediately that the character of Cocker has been completely erased. Matthew works in his families automotive shop and has a crush on his friend Jen (Anya Taylor-Joy). Kearney has plans to leave Ireland behind and head to the US where he thinks women will be all over him. While Rez is often stuck as their third while and silently battles mental illness. All three boys seem to revel in chaos (with Matthew occasionally showing a level head). They bust up cars, break into their old school and party the night away at party after party, getting as drunk and high on pills as possible.

All three of their lives take a sudden and dark turn when they witness a young girl get hit by a car. All three boys take the tragedy in different ways: Matthew can't get the images out of his head but refuses to face them head on, Rez sinks into a pit of depression and Kearney finds that the car crash unlocks something inside of him, something dark. He begins to film himself doing crude and horrible things, sinking lower and lower into these vile acts. Jen and Matthew fall into a relationship quickly but the accident pushes them farther and farther apart. Through more parties, more drugs and more bad decisions, the trio of friends embark on a future that looks very different than they planned on and might not be able to hold on as it spins out of control.

Eoin Macken's film (which he co-wrote with the novel's writer Rob Doyle) is stylistically sharp and even somethings haunting. But unlike another "youth gone wild" film called TRAINSPOTTING (which is clearly an inspiration), the more surreal moments of the novel don't translate as well. In both the novel and film, there's an oddball surreal game show called BIG SHOW! that takes place entirely in Kearney's subconscious mind. We see it here as well but it also flows through Matthew's mind (but not Rez's, for some reason). It's a bold and risky move, one that the film can't quite pull off. Instead, the sequences are often jarring and confusing, muddling more than enhancing. The actors are all quite solid, and even though it's very clear that Kearney is an abusive manipulator from his first moment on screen, Finn Cole powers through the role with a horrifying fierceness. The roles of Rez and Jen are both sadly underdeveloped, which is a shame since both Ferdia Walsh-Peelo and Anya Taylor-Joy are both strong screen presences (this was filmed far before Taylor-Joy's current fame, courtesy of THE QUEEN'S GAMBIT). She does the most she can with the role, but sadly ends up only being a catalyst for Matthew's growth and not a fully developed character of her own. And as the only meaty female role, it's a bad look for the film to have. In the end, HERE ARE THE YOUNG MEN seems to be unsure of what it wants to say, or at least how to tell us. So we're left guessing what point they're trying to make among all of the toxic masculinity, which may be the reason the feeling you leave with is quite a hollow one.

GRADE: C+

BASED ON THE NOVEL BY Rob Doyle SCREENPLAY BY Rob Doyle, Eoin Macken DIRECTED BY Eoin Macken STARRING Dean-Charles Chapman, Finn Cole, Anya Taylor-Joy, Ferdia Walsh-Peelo, Conleth Hill, Ralph Ineson. NOW PLAYING IN DIGITAL CINEMAS EVERYWHERE. FOR MORE INFO: HERE ARE THE YOUNG MEN

BROKE, BROKE AND AWAY // A FILM REVIEW OF "GLASS"

BY MATEO MORENO

To say that M. Night Shyamalan’s career has had its ups and downs is really putting it mildly. Since exploding into the mainstream with The Sixth Sense in 1999 (which received almost universe love), M. Night has released one project after another, each one dividing audiences into a pure frenzy. Talk of “he’s lost it” and “he’s back to form” has been said throughout his entire career. But one thing that can be said is that he’s been consistently original. You may not like what comes out of his brain (cough, cough… The Happening… cough, cough), but it is purely his own vision being transported onto the screen. His follow up to The Sixth Sense was Unbreakable in 2000 and that film is still my favorite property of his. It told the story of David Dunn, an ordinary man who slowly finds himself to be “unbreakable.” It was a superhero story in a very non-superhero world. Samuel L. Jackson played his nemesis, Elijah Price, a man whose bones were so brittle that he was nicknamed “Mr. Glass.” Slow and powerful, and I’ve often thought of it ever since.

In 2016, M. Night “returned to form” once again with the unassuming Split, featuring James McAvoy as Kevin Wendell Crumb, a man who has 23 personalities inside of him and the most dangerous one is threatening to overtake them all. It was a fun, original, and very well told film. The surprise was that in the final moments of the film, we were reintroduced to David Dunn, and realized that the two films took place in the same universe. Now, the long-awaited follow-up to Unbreakable has arrived, now less of a sequel and more of the final piece of a trilogy. GLASS is the third part of the puzzle, bringing together David Dunn, Mr. Glass, and all of James McAvoy’s personalities. It also brings back Anya Taylor-Joy from Split and a grown-up Spencer Treat Clark from Unbreakable. M. Night’s three main characters are sent to an asylum and treated by Dr. Ellie Staple (Sarah Paulson) a woman who specializes in the very specific delusion of grandeur where people believe they are actually superheroes

What follows is a lot of great build up and promise that fizzles so fast that it’s actually enraging. The mood and slow building dread of his earlier films fill the first half of GLASS expertly. Sarah Paulson is stoic and sharp, Anya Taylor-Joy and Spencer Treat Clark are great supporting players, and James McAvoy is utterly brilliant (and he stays that way up until the end). However, for a movie named after Mr. Glass, Samuel L. Jackson’s presence is largely under utilized here, as he’s catatonic for most of the film and when he springs, rather wheels, into action, it’s pretty unremarkable. Most disappointing is the treatment M. Night gives David Dunn and the sleepwalk performance Bruce Willis performs it with. David Dunn is a fascinating character who’s reduces to getting thrown around and has the weakest of all storylines. The final act, which is teased to be a giant superhero showdown, is all smoke and mirrors and actually takes places somewhere else entirely, somewhere far less exciting. And the writer/director either doesn’t trust the audience to know the beats of a superhero story or doesn’t actually understand them himself, because suddenly near the end of the film, every character starts to explain out loud how this action is part of an origin story or this action is how the hero triumphs, etc, etc. GLASS had me engaged for the first half and completely nosedived into ridiculousness in the second. But I do admire the world, and the risks that M. Night took here. I just wish he knew how to land it.

MATEO'S GRADE: C+

WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY M. Night Shyamalan STARRING James McAvoy, Bruce Willis, Samuel L. Jackson, Anya Taylor-Joy, Sarah Paulson, Spencer Treat Clark. Now playing in select cinemas.