Two Paragraph Review - Wind River (2017)

Once more, the movie world puts a sniper rifle in the hands of Jeremy Renner, but this time, it exchanges the sun-scorched wastelands of Iraq for the frozen wastelands of Wyoming. There, a murder of a young woman belonging to the local Native American tribe brings in the law enforcement, but also many questions related to a community struggling with real-life problems, as well as their cultural identity and a sense of purpose.

The film was made by Taylor Sheridan, who had his part in movies like Sicario and Hell or High Water, which makes him a prime author of modern gritty thrillers. Wind River is also a very good thriller, but not much than this. For me, the main issue that comes across is the lack of real depth in relation to the Native American angle of the story. Aside from the expected sympathy for their silent plight and somewhat simplistic representation of many struggling characters, the film ends up being something that just did it research and then completely forgot about Wyoming or its inhabitants. For me, Mystery Road is an example how this type of a story can be told with less cinematographic polish but with a more hearth, which Wind River lacks just a little bit.

FilmFish � The New Way of Finding Great Movies and TV Shows

When I recently came about FilmFish, a new movie/TV show recommendation service, I didn�t have too many expectations. After all, we live in the world where everyone recommends everything all the time. This is probably one of the reasons I kind of gave up on many traditional resources that were once very relevant to me. As the social media phenomenon took off, so did the concept of recommendation became blurred and lost in the previously mentioned social media noise.

But, as I soon realized, FilmFish was something completely different. Now, two weeks after I first started using it, I can safely say it is the best alternative cinematographic recommendation websites I ever came across. Firstly, it offers an across-the-board recommendation for TV shows, including all the major league players like Amazon Prime, Netflix, Hulu, and HBO. This way, it elegantly bypasses the problem of native service recommendations where they only suggest their in-house content.



However, it is the actual FilmFish recommendation process that makes it such a killer platform for exploring and discovering new content. It uses a combination of machine learning with personal curation coming from those who are well versed in the movie industry. The �people� side of the service includes a mix of very talented and diverse professionals from all corners of the film world. This is why individuals like the actor Topher Grace and Joyce Kulhawik, the co-host of the late and great Roger Ebert are on the FilmFish team.

With this mixture, it manages to provide stunning results even for someone like me, who has been, at least in my view, well informed about the TV and movie industries in the last 15 years. Its front page show a number of thematic lists that are very colorful and interesting, but the service really shines with its search feature. It is enough to try out its search function and see the magic takes place in front of your own eyes. Once a reference point is inserted, the service lists its results both in the TV show and movie domains. I personally began to experiment with the service in a slow manner, but then started to ramp up my searches with things like Peaky Blinders, a TV show that is unique in its topic and delivery.

Looking at it from the perspective of genre classification, it is a crime series featuring a crime family. But, in its case, the FilmFish search first recommends Boardwalk Empire, Taboo, and Deadwood, all of which are not only great shows. But, they are also very relevant to Peaky Blinders being that they reside firstly not on the crime stories themselves, but a strong sense of depicting real history. Additionally, all of them are completely brutal in their representation of those particular times and on many additional levels, they all singly fit inside of a FilmFish category that combines all relevant traits.

At the same time, the functionality of the site is expectedly high and allows for easy future exploration once a person finds their pick, including watching its trailer or adding it to their watch list. Fortunately, the creators of FilmFish did not fall into the trap of trying to make it too cluttered with additional possibilities and options. From a user experience point of view, its layout and usefulness are flawless.

Thanks to all of this, I must sincerely recommend FilmFish to anyone who is sick and tired of the same old ways of trying to find new movies and TV shows. I have no doubt that the service will only become better as time goes by, so head on to FilmFish.com and start using it right now!

Crowdfunding Push: Betta Fish

The playing field of indie filmmaking is very wide, but as I stated several times before, for me personally, the genre of thriller is the domain where the best works of this type have been made. Now, a new ambitions film is looking for funds to create what its crew is hoping to be an innovative modern neo-noir thriller. The project is called Betta Fish and here�s how its Indiegogo page describes the plot:

The story revolves around Danny Bishop, a mischievous, manipulative gambler with a history as a prodigy con artist. Fresh out of prison and in trouble due to a large debt to Alex, the beautiful, elegant, malicious mob boss queen of the city, Danny has a worthy opponent. 

Motivated by the pain of her enemies and the destruction of Danny, Alex swears to kill him and his family if he does not pay his debt, putting Danny on a collision course with old friends and rivals in his quest to succeed.  This socially progressive story involves a mixture of race and diverse communities, centering on family and the right to equality.

The film was written by Joshua Ungaretti and it is well in its development, which shows determination to see Betta Fish finished. This is always a good sign for an indie film. Also, having in mind that brilliant films like Blue Ruin have been created using this financial method, there�s no reason why the same can�t happen here. Personally, I�m liking the cinematography and the writing style, both of which seem to come with a cool combo of tight focus and looseness - while it might not be the most intuitive thing in the world, it is a good starting point for a movie that tries to innovate.

Right now, Betta Fish is undergoing a crowdfunding process that could provide the crew with funds to finish it. Check out how you can help right here and use your money or online voice to help Betta Fish end up a feature-length movie.

Two Paragraph Review - Baby Driver (2017)

Copyright: Sony Pictures

This movie is all about the beats. Each shot and frame are designed to support the songs and their beat track, which is in itself an impressive feat. At the same time, the simple story of a reluctant heist driver caught below the paw of a big gangster is told well, adding another layer of deliciousness to this excellent cinematic dish. This way, Baby Driver isn�t so much about fast cars or cars of any kind, but about the way we keep our lives in the rhythm of it all.

The only difference is that the director chose to tell this in  the most extreme manner, glazing music and strong beats over everything, even eye movements and windshield cleaner swipes. This makes is one of the most intense movies that uses its score as the propagator of the plot ever since Whiplash came out. It also shares other things with it, making Baby Driver into an almost sequel-like work, but which confidently stands on its own feet. To put it plainly in musical terms, it has all the right grooves.

Indie Showcase: Pain & Music (2016)

Over the last few years or even the previous two decades, there have been some very solid cinematic works of art about the world of African-American music scene. Currently, Empire is a TV show that found mainstream success with its formula, while the slightly less-known Atlanta made by the brilliant Donald Glover is leagues in front of it when it comes to its simplicity and humor.

In the movie domain, Hustle & Flow made a few ripples over a decade ago but has practically disappeared since. Now, a new indie movie desires to continue on this path. It is called Pain & Music and it's currently available on Amazon Prime. Here's its official description:

Nevaeh Falls in love with Gunz a notorious stick-up kid from Virginia who promises to make her dreams come true at making it big in the music industry. A hood classic sure to leave you at the edge of your seat, full of twists & turns. Drugs, sex, murder, & music. Based on true events. A gangsta love story from a female perspective.

The description is honest and brutal just as much as the film aims to be, which its trailer shows off perfectly. The movie, just like its story, is often rough in its depiction of its character, much in the same way life itself treated them. While the glitz and the glamour of making it big on the music scene as an African-American seem to be a dream come true, the road to that dream is anything but dreamlike.

With an unapologetic approach to this cruel side of the show business, Pain & Music, which starts the multi-talented Shafone Collier is something you will definitely enjoy if you love the always-vibrant US "hood" genre.

Watch Pain & Music right now on Amazon Prime.

Short Film Review: Loyalty or Betrayal (2017)

A strong film can be made out of a huge range of elements which are set in an even bigger number of possible relations. This is why there is no definite recipe that makes a perfect film and also the same reasons why so many great yet wildly different movies exist. Still, most excellent works of art, including cinematography, come with a single distinctive advantage that either allowed them to be great or eventually made them that way. This element is called simplicity.

With a healthy degree of simplicity, any movie project stands a chance to become something extraordinary. Jonathan Vargas is a young filmmaker who has not created a masterpiece with his latest short film Loyalty or Betrayal, but has made a simple and incredibly effective work of art. It has its flaws, but it covers all of its bases in a wonderful manner, making it a dream come true for any jury on a short indie film festival.

Firstly, it showcases the director�s knowledge of cinematography to greatly expand on the things this production managed to acquire, which is aside from the actors, not much. But, in this film�s lens, ordinary rooms, garages, and backyards are transferred into places of immense suffering and soul-tearing decisions. The same locations faithful follow the simple-as-it-gets plot: a young criminal figure is tasked with taking out his own father after his betrayal of a crime organization is revealed.

The younger version of Vargas, who already made very ambitious projects like Gaby�s Revenge and Our Final Days Together, would most likely start building a more elaborate narrative from there. But instead, the more experienced Vargas left it with this simple premise which is this way made even more impacting.

Just like with the plot, Vargas works wisely with his actors. There is a whole universe in the not-speaking main character, but the director�s skills are best shown in his support cast, mainly Richard Sosa as the Vincent, the father and Kenneth Ruiz as another member of the crime organization. Both of them are excellent when it comes to the setup of the story and its girth � in fact, it could be said that both actually tell the story of the main character instead of him.

As the plot unravels in a manner that is not fully chronological, the viewers are left to wait until the end not just to see what happens, but to experience closure. In this act, the Loyalty or Betrayal shows itself as an excellent crime thriller that is condensed into 13 minutes and still manages to tell all that needs to be told. Vargas made with the film his best work so far and I have no doubts about this whatsoever.

Starting with simplicity and enforcing it with elegance and sharp storytelling, he created a fine short film, worthy of things like the early works of Steven Soderbergh. Technically, there is still room for improvement, but in its essence, Loyalty or Betrayal has no flaws as a narratively-focused work of art.

I�ll be bold enough to foretell a bright future for this work when it comes to indie film festivals. Also, it is definitely the thing that Vargas wants backing him up as an artist as he prepares for the next logical, but very demanding step � his first feature film.

Indie Showcase: Beer & Seed

The history of contemporary film shows that one of the most grateful domains for indie releases is the genre of comedy. From Kevin Smith�s Clerks to Summer of Blood and Safety not Guaranteed, all of these great movies managed to get so much out of very little. Beer & Seed is a film that utilizes the same approach and goes for that dark comedy space in an otherwise familiar and friendly environment.

The official description of the film pitches it this way:

What happens when you follow a navy veteran who goes back to college? A world full of fat girl sex, drugs, gambling, violence. In a creepy comical look, Bill goes through the issues of working and trying to pass through college. In this well crafted Indy film, Bill Cox takes you on a journey where crazy is the reality at Central College in Beer & Seed, a classic "Stoner Film".

The film drops the unlikely character into a brand new world where the rules and social structure is very different. However, the protagonist is a person who has different ideas about all of that, mainly because of his military background. Essentially, it looks like the Beer & Seed rides on the tradition of the mayhem on college films like the cult Animal House, but adapts itself to the modern day and age. Here�s a trailer for it, which gives a sense of where the film will take its audience:

As the trailer shows, there is plenty of weirdness and sharp (no pun intended) humor in the film. For an indie release, these are the best choices for an engaging plot, while at the same time, Beer & Seed simply looks like a fun movie. Check out more about the film on Amazon and spread the word about it if you like it.