In one of the biggest, baddest episodes of the Way Too Indiecast yet, we welcome two of the best directors in the game as we hear from Richard Linklater about his ’80s college hangout movie Everybody Wants Some!! and are joined by Jeff Nichols, whose sci-fi thriller Midnight Special hits theaters this weekend as well.

WTI’s very own Ananda Dillon chats with Bernard about what she saw of AMC’s new Preacher series at WonderCon this past weekend, and if that wasn’t enough, the Dastardly Dissenter himself, CJ Prince, chimes in to talk about the recent controversy surrounding the Tribeca Film Festival and share his Indie Pick of the Week. Whew! What are you waiting for? Dive into the deep end of this week’s pool of ooey gooey Indiecast goodness!

And if that last sentence grosses you out…um…just hit play and enjoy.

Topics

• Indie Picks (5:18)
• Richard Linklater (18:42)
• Preacher Preview (32:17)
• Tribeca Vaxxed Controversy (51:13)
• Jeff Nichols (1:06:32)

Articles Referenced

• City of Gold Interview
• Fireworks Wednesday Review
• Everybody Wants Some!! Interview
• Midnight Special Interview
• Preacher Preview

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Like his 2011 film Take Shelter, Jeff Nichols‘ Midnight Special was born out of fear, specifically the fear of losing his son.

“I think, really, we’re terrified of losing them, so we’re going to try to figure out who they are to try to help them. Help them become the ones who manifest their own destiny,” the director told me during an interview I conducted a couple of weeks back. That fatherly fear is at the core of the film, though the story blossoms into something much bigger, touching on themes of friendship, homeland security, science, and religion, all in the mode of a sci-fi thriller.

Michael Shannon stars as a man escorting his supernaturally gifted son to a secret location, all while evading an armed religious sect and U.S. military forces. Aiding them on their journey is an old friend (Joel Edgerton) and the boy’s mother (Kirsten Dunst); a government scientist (Adam Driver), meanwhile, tries to understand the family’s plight as he tracks their location.

Terrifically thrilling and deeply affecting, Midnight Special is yet another showcase by one of this generation’s very best visual storytellers and opens in theaters this weekend.

Some people consider your movies to be vague or overly ambiguous. That’s maybe the biggest criticism levied against you.
It’s funny how everybody wants to be polite. Obviously, I made the film with an open ending on purpose. It’s like, let’s talk about it! If you don’t like it…maybe, rather than just being entrenched in your position, if we talk about it, you might be illuminated on something. It was funny, I had a good conversation with a lady in Berlin about [the movie]. She had a very specific place where she thought I should end the movie. She was very specific about not liking the end of the movie, and I said, “That’s cool. Where would you end the movie?” She told me, and I thought, that would be a terrible ending! She was like, “Well, it’s right. That’s where you should have ended it.” I was like, I really don’t think you’re right! I didn’t convince her, but it was at least fun to have a conversation.

So you do enjoy those conversations.
I do, yeah.

I do, too. If I meet a filmmaker and I didn’t like their movie, maybe, and I get illuminated by their insight…I love that.
The reality is, making movies is really complex. It’s a strange algebra. There are so many variables that go into them. I would be shocked if you met a filmmaker who said, “My film’s perfect,” you know? I don’t know if I want to be friends with that person.

Tommy Wiseau.
[laughs] It goes beyond ego. I want these films to be conversation starters, so of course it makes sense that I would want to have conversations about them. As long as people don’t ask me too many specifics about things. It’s cool to see how people’s minds work on them and work on the problems I created. It’s cool to hear how people interpret things, sometimes random, sometimes spot-on, sometimes differently. It’s fun.

In some ways, this movie is like the Superman movie I always wanted in terms of tone and taste, do you know what I mean?
I do.

The existential crisis of Superman is something that’s seldom handled well.
That’s very interesting. I think Zack Snyder scratched the surface of it. I think someone—maybe it was JJ Abrams—was talking about [doing] a Superman film and he was like, “I just wonder how he didn’t kill anybody as a baby.” I know that there are other people who have takes on it. I never saw this character as a superhero—I just saw him as a boy. His illnesses I just thought of as being organic, even though they’re supernatural. The same thing happened with

The same thing happened with Take Shelter. To your comment, specifically—wanting to see a certain version of a kind of movie…This is going to sound ridiculous, but Take Shelter was kind of my zombie movie. Take Shelter was my take on all those cool feelings in a zombie film where people are preparing for a disaster or preparing for the zombie stuff. I just wanted to make a movie that lived in that part. Then you start to make it deeper and more meaningful and relate it to your life, but that was very much the case with Take Shelter and here [with Midnight Special] too. I really liked those movies of the ’80s and sci-fi movies from that period. I kind of wanted to live in that world for a little bit, which doesn’t negate, though, my approach to the story or how I broaden its veins into my own life. It doesn’t discount that feeling, that sense you get after having seen stuff like that. I felt that way with Mud, too. I had this notion of what a classic American film was. I couldn’t tell you one specifically, but I can tell you a combination of several. Cool Hand Luke, The Getaway…I kind of wanted it to feel like some of the things I felt during those movies.

Midnight Special applies to that. So many people try to make these one-to-one analogies with these films, especially with the endings and other things. Those are kind of lost on me. That’s not how I thought about them. I just thought about the essence of those films.

Hitchcock’s movies were driven by his personal fears. Would you say you’re the same?
Absolutely. One hundred percent. The interesting thing about Hitchcock is that he chose fear as a predominant format to work in, which makes sense because that’s best for directors.

How so?
The feeling of fear is most directly linked to the toolbox that a director has to work with. This shot plus this shot equals this feeling. This music here, this framing here. I’m not going to give you much lead space in front of your eyes, and that’s going to freak people out. It’s different in comedy or drama…they’re not really genres. They’re these feelings. Fear most directly relates most to what a director does. I approach it a little differently. Definitely in Take Shelter, there are some scary moments, and they’re intended to be scary. I was getting to use that toolbox. I approach fear more from the standpoint of a writer. I use fear as a catalyst. Fear makes for a scary scene—“This is going to be a scary moment”—that’s what I’m talking about with Hitchcock. What I’m talking about as a writer…fear is a catalyst for a bigger idea. It’s a catalyst for the thought that you’re trying to convey to the audience, which for me is always an emotion—it’s not a story. It’s not plot. It’s not, “I’m going to tell you a story about what happened to a guy.” It’s, “I’m going to tell you a story about how a guy feels.”

Fear is a great place to start from. Fear is what motivates us as humans to get out and gather the food and build the shelter. It’s like a foundational element of humanity. But fear is only a catalyst. For instance, this film is about the fear of losing my son. That brings up a lot of emotions and other things, but that’s not a thought in and of itself. I can’t just make a movie about a guy afraid of losing his son. What does he do with that? What’s he trying to do with that fear? I think that forced me to think about the actual nature of parenthood. What are we trying to do? We’re trying to, I think, define for ourselves who our children are, in the purest way we possibly can. Sometimes, our own point of view gets in the way and we project that onto our kids. But I think, really, we’re terrified of losing them, so we’re going to try to figure out who they are to try to help them. Help them become the ones who manifest their own destiny. We have no control over that destiny. We have no control over who they become. At best, we can try to help them realize who they are and help them become that.

That became a thought. Fear produced that thought, which became the backbone for this movie. In Take Shelter, I was afraid of the world falling apart. I was afraid of not being a good provider for my family, or an adult, or a good husband. I was afraid of all those things, and there was a bunch of anxiety that came from that. But that’s not what that movie’s about—that movie’s about communicating in marriage. That movie’s about the foundational principles of marriage, which I think is communication. That’s why I made the daughter deaf. I think, in order to get that, I needed to have fear. Shotgun Stories is about the fear of losing one of my brothers. But ultimately that’s not what the movie’s about. It’s about the fruitlessness of revenge, a revenge that was born out of that fear.

I think there’s a huge misunderstanding among moviegoers in this country. People are obsessed with plot. That’s how they critique movies—solely on the plot! From the stunning opening of this movie, it’s clear you’re not interested in exposition. This is cinema, that’s it. We’re dealing with emotions, images, and sound. I wish more people appreciated that. I think maybe they do, subconsciously.
Maybe they do, you know? It depends on what people want out of a film. At different times you want different things. A lot of people—and I’m this audience sometimes—want escapism. Look at the way people use score. Score, even more than expositional dialogue, is the way to telegraph a pass, like in basketball. You never telegraph a pass—you never want the defense to know where you’re looking, because they’ll know where you’re going to throw the ball and then they’ll steal it. You can telegraph so much by having two characters speak, and then you put this music underneath it. Everybody knows they’re supposed to be scared, or they’re supposed to be happy, or they’re supposed to be sad. When you remove score, which I mostly did in Shotgun Stories, it’s very offputting to people. All of a sudden, they’re having to judge a scene on its own merits, not on this feeling that you’re giving them. They actually have to start listening. That’s just an example of my broader approach: If you remove certain things, people have to listen.

Some people don’t want that experience when they go to the theater, and that’s okay. I’ll catch you the next time, or maybe I’ll catch you on a Sunday night, when you’ve got a little more free time. It’s my job, though, to try and understand the nature of how people receive stories. It’s natural to search for plot. That’s how our brains work. I don’t hold it against anybody, but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to challenge them through a new type of organization of information. Because that’s all it is—you’re just organizing information in a certain way so that it lands at certain times. My movies have plot. I just don’t think it’s the going concern. I think writers are so concerned sometimes with just making things clear.

I know that studios are. They test these things to make sure that no stone is unturned and that people are getting what they want. But what people want isn’t always what they need. I’m fascinated by story dynamics. I’m fascinated by what works for an audience and what doesn’t, what keeps them engaged and what doesn’t. If you’re not working on the edge of all that, you’re never going to have a situation where someone says, “My nails were dug into the edge of my chair,” and one person writes, “This movie is boring as hell.” I have to be okay with both of those responses. I don’t think I could get either if I was just trying to walk down the middle of the road.

About the opening, again, which I love so much…
I think it’s the best opening I’ll ever do.

Some people might consider it disorienting, but I think, for this story, you get exactly the amount of information you need.
What’s funny for me is, I think it’s so obvious. I’m wondering, like, will people just know that, once he picks the boy up into his arms in the hotel room, that obviously he’s not a kidnapper? Yes, they do, but since it hasn’t been so specifically told to them, they feel it, but they don’t know it yet. That’s a really great place to be. To me, it’s just so obvious. “That mystery’s solved.” But it’s not yet. It’s not totally solved. I have this line of Sam Shepard revealing, “The birth father, Roy Tomlin.” I wrote that scene specifically to be a surprise to the FBI, because they haven’t had the ranch under surveillance long enough to know that he was the birth father. The thing I’m wondering is, is it a surprise to the audience? That’s what I [mean] when I talk about narrative mechanics. I’m just so fascinated. When did you know? Here’s when I tell you, or here’s where I specifically don’t tell you.

Obviously, Joel Edgerton’s profession in the film—that was really specific. I remember giving [the script] to this young girl who was going to be a PA on our film. I gave her the script, and maybe she wasn’t the sharpest tack in the drawer, but she read it and just so clearly was like, “You have to tell us sooner that he’s a state trooper. We need to know that because I was really turned off when he did what he did at the end of the film. If I had known that, I’d have felt a lot better about his character a lot sooner.” She was so earnest in her argument. But it’s like, don’t you understand that you having all these emotions is part of the process? It’s part of the story. It just made me smile, and she probably thought I was a dickhead.

Joel gives you so much.
He’s a great actor.

In that scene in particular, he tells you what you need to know in how he behaves.
There you go! I thought it was pretty obvious. He walks over to the fallen state trooper and speaks in a way that no normal person would speak on the police radio. I was like, well, I’m just letting people know there. That’s what his character would do. A bad version of that writing would be [for him] to go over and say, “Hey, hey, there’s a police officer shot.” That wouldn’t be honest to him either. He wants that guy to get help. That’s why he goes and does it. He did not want to go shoot that guy. You could have Jeff Nichols the writer brain go, “If I have him speak that way, I’ll show my cards too soon.” But that’s as dishonest as having him explain that he’s a state trooper. Both of those things are dishonest. My fear for this movie…any shortcoming is when I might have been to purposefully ambiguous in a scene. I’ve read that critique, and I’ve gone back in and I’ve looked at it, and I don’t know. I’ve been able to reason out why they would behave that way. Point being, character behavior trumps all narrative desire.

I paint myself into corners all the time. It’s like, okay, I have this very strict rule about character behavior and dialogue, but I need this piece of information in the movie. It’s my job to craft a scene that allows that piece of information to come through, or we don’t get it. Then I deal with that consequence. It’s like an austerity to the writing you have to apply. You really have to stick to it. You really do.

Kirsten Dunst’s character is one of my favorite motherly characters in a while. You don’t see this stuff often. Without spoiling anything, the things she does, the way she reacts to things—it feels authentic, it feels real.
I think she’s the strongest character in the film. I think she’s able to do something the male characters can’t, specifically Michael Shannon’s. I’m not just saying this to gain the pro-women’s lib lobby. Watching my son be born and what my wife did and then what she did the year that followed…there’s no doubt in my mind that women are the stronger sex in terms of fortitude and emotions. I was very struck in high school when I read A Doll’s House by Ibsen. It’s about a mother that leaves her children. I came from a home where that would not be possible. But it is possible. That’s why the mother in Shotgun Stories hates her children. She blames them for her place in life. Their existence lowered her, in her mind. I was fascinated by the idea that there could be a mother character that would come to the conclusion first of what the inevitability of parenthood is. It made sense to me that a mother would be the one to understand the cycle of parenthood before the father, who has undeniably committed his entire life to the safety of his boy. It takes the mother to realize the cycle that they’re a part of.

I don’t think Michael’s character understands it fully or is willing to accept it fully until the boy gets out of the car. I think it’s important, but it’s also a big narrative risk. You’ve built this father-son story, the mother doesn’t come in for the first thirty minutes, and she’s tangential. Then you do this physical handoff where she’s the one who physically represents their position to their child at the end of the film. I had no idea if it would work, and for some people, I’m sure it doesn’t. I reason out, character-wise, why it would work out that way. Like I said, she’s the stronger of the two. I’m glad to hear you say you like her…because I like her.

That moment you mention where the boy gets out of the car broke my heart.
Good! That’s the one. David Fincher talks about how every movie should have an emotional punch in the gut. That was mine. I have one in each of my films. I’m glad you liked it.

Sevier (Adam Driver) is great, too.
Adam Driver is, in my opinion, going to be one of the most important actors of our generation, irrelevant of Star Wars. I think he’s that good. He’s that interesting. I want to make a detective movie with him really badly.

Why a detective movie?
Because I want to make a detective movie.

[laughs]
Because I’m a huge fan of Fletch. I just want to make a private eye movie.

There’s no away around it, and it pains me to believe it considering how big a fan I am of his previous films, but Jeff Nichols‘ much-anticipated Midnight Special is a disappointment. How a film that packs so much promise with its director, cast, and synopsis can leave such a flat impression is something that I’ll be mulling over during Berlinale and beyond. A story of a close-knit family with a boy who’s got special powers, on the run from a religious cult and the government, pulsates with potential. But not even the commanding Michael Shannon can save this film from being Nichols’ first major misfire.

As most disappointments often do, things start off so well. With zero exposition, we’re thrust into the action of Ray (Shannon) and Lucas (Joel Edgerton, at his understated best here) on-the-run with 8-year-old Alton (Jaeden Lieberher) and before the brilliant title sequence even comes up, we’ve already got a hundred questions. Why is the young lad wearing goggles? Who are these men? Why is the government, who is making this national news, after them? The mystery is instantly gripping, and even more so once the Ranch—a cult that believes Alton’s words are gospel—gets involved. They want him because they believe he’s their savior, the FBI and the NSA are after him because they think he’s a weapon, and all Roy wants to do is bring him back to his mother (Kirsten Dunst) and make sure he’s where he’s got to be on Friday, March 6th, a.k.a. Judgement Day. Oh, and the boy speaks in tongues, has telepathic connections with radio signals, and shoots blue light from his eyes.

Basically, you’d have to check your pulse if you weren’t totally sucked in by the halfway mark. But as the mystery begins to unravel further, delusions of grandeur set in. The big mystery, all those gripping question marks, amount to one big “OK, that’s it?” shrug by the end. Adam Stone’s cinematography is excellent, the performances are predictably stellar, Nichols expertly directs a couple of stand-out sequences, but the story gets lost in a vague haze of questionable decisions and a final climax utterly deflated of the emotional oomph it’s supposed to have. It has its grand familial Spielbergian flourishes, but Midnight Special ends up being disappointingly ordinary and surprisingly forgettable.

Rating:
6.5/10

The real-life story of James “Whitey” Bulger, the South Boston crime boss who acted as a protected FBI informant for years until the arrangement imploded, is one of the most bizarre, once-in-a-lifetime stories you’re likely to hear. Black Mass, directed by Scott Cooper (Crazy Heart, Out of the Furnace) and starring Johnny Depp as the murderous Mr. Bulger, isn’t quite as rarified; Depp acts harder and better than he has in many years, but other than his performance, the film isn’t anything special. Cooper and writers Mark Mallouk and Jez Butterworth use familiar tropes from the mob-movie lexicon to make the story palatable to wide audiences, and in doing so strip the story of all its strangeness.

Aside from that minor tragedy, the film actually works very well. Goodfellas and The Departed are great movies, so the fact that Cooper so blatantly borrows from them isn’t so much offensive as it is uninspired, and at the end of the day, he’s crafted an effective movie. We follow Bulger’s rise from general small-time crime lord to over-powered, FBI-protected kingpin and, eventually, man on the run. Catapulting him from low-level extortion and drug deals to Southie (and beyond) dominance is a deal he strikes with an old childhood friend, John Connolly (Joel Edgerton), who now works for the FBI. As long as Whitey helps the feds take down other, bigger crime organizations, he and his gang will be free to run amok and expand their empire, given he doesn’t kill anyone in doing so (good luck with that). Making things even stickier, his brother, Billy (Benedict Cumberbatch, struggling with an awful Boston accent), is one of the most prominent politicians in the state.

The true-crime story revolves around Bulger and the demons that tormented him and compel him to become the thing he hates most—a snitch, a rat, a sell-out. Arguably the biggest contributing factor is the tragic death of his young son, whose mother (Dakota Johnson) never looks at Bulger the same again. With his family crumbling around him, his humanity begins to twist and melt away until he’s nothing more than a merciless overlord with a thirst for vengeful dominance.

Depp’s performance is gravitational, drawing everything in from us to the other actors. All converges on the blue-eyed, murderous bastard, and Depp more than bears the load with his best on-screen effort in who knows how long. He’s a damn good actor, and god knows we needed a reminder of that. He plays Bulger as a terrifying, calculating, unpredictable killer who always seems one step ahead of everyone, including us. His poker face is impenetrable, and we’re left breathlessly anticipating when he’ll strike next and dispatch of his next victim with his gruesome handiwork. Depp’s make-up walks the line between frightening and distracting, but he more often than not nudges the effect to the side of the former.

Tension rises as Connolly scrambles to protect Bulger and keep the deal intact, weaseling his way out of tight spots (like when Bulger is the prime suspect in a high-profile out-of-state murder) and wiping sweat off of his brow with every close call. Edgerton’s Napoleonic braggadocio is very funny, lending a frantic comedic flavor to an otherwise deathly affair. The rest of the FBI and Southie gang crews are filled out by a stacked line-up of actors, from Kevin Bacon and Corey Stoll as Connolly’s skeptical superiors, to Jesse Plemons, Peter Sarsgaard, and W. Earl Brown as Bulger’s colorful, heavy-fisted underlings.

What threatens to yank us away from the tight grip of Depp’s performance is the material, which is never wholly original and is downright second-rate when it practices mob-movie mimicry. One moment sees Bulger breaking bread with Connolly and one of his FBI partners, John Morris (David Harbour). Bulger asks John to give up the family-secret recipe for the delicious marinade he bathed their steaks in and, in a mild panic, John lets him in on the secret ingredients. The mood turns icy cold when Bulger asks how he could ever trust someone who would divulge a family secret so easily. Nobody’s laughing, and the room is filled with nervous energy. It’s Joe Pesci’s “Do I amuse you?” speech in Goodfellas, but only half as effective. It’s almost as if Cooper felt he needed to outfit Bulger with mob clichés in order for the movie to work. A more idiosyncratic approach may have allowed Depp to reach greater heights.

Those let down by Joel Edgerton‘s The Gift were probably expecting another movie entirely. While the movie is totally terrifying and will make you leap ten feet off of your seat at least once, this is not the trashy slasher flick the movie’s trailer and marketing would have you believe. It’s much better than that: The Gift is a stalker suspense-thriller with a wicked edge, a thematically rich tale of revenge and domination that engages the mind as it gives you the willies. In short, this movie is legit as hell; pay no mind to the misleading TV spots and ridiculous, punny movie posters.

Edgerton, an Australian screen vet who’s also done his share of screenwriting, makes his directorial debut with The Gift, and it goes swimmingly. In addition to writing and directing, he also stars as Gordo, a socially awkward nerd type who wears ill-fitting pedophile attire. He knows Simon (Jason Bateman) from high school. Simon and his wife Robyn (Rebecca Hall) have just moved back to Simon’s hometown of Los Angeles from Chicago, and Gordo recognizes him at a department store. After a quick bit of uncomfortable small-talk, the couple find they’ve made a new friend as Gordo starts visiting their new home periodically, dropping off little presents for them as housewarming gifts, often when they aren’t home.

Gordo’s infiltration of Simon and Robyn’s life is a slow burn; it starts off as innocuously as Gordo joining them for dinner, but gradually gets out of hand as he starts popping up unexpectedly and peering through their windows. Simon’s creeped out by Gordo’s clingy behavior (though he seems to enjoy making fun of him a little too much), and as his patience grows thin and tensions rise between the old “friends,” Robyn starts to suspect that there’s more to their history than Simon’s letting on. As she slowly uncovers the truth about their past, she begins to realize Simon might not be the man she thought he was. Maybe that’s exactly what Gordo wants. Maybe not.

Like I eluded to before, Edgerton’s film doesn’t rack up a high kill count or even spill much blood. But the danger’s still there; in this story, the truth is sharper than any blade, deadlier than any elaborate Jigsaw contraption. Edgerton keeps the story’s big secret from us for a good long while, and when we finally learn the truth, he blindsides us with an even more devastating blow that’ll make your head spin. Without spoiling too much, I will say that the film bears a strong comparison to Alexandra’s Project, a 2003 psychological thriller from Australia by Rolf de Heer. If you’ve never seen it, give it a go; then you’ll catch my drift.

To talk about the movie’s primary theme would actually spoil a lot, so I’ll just say that Edgerton takes age-old ideas of male ego and explores them elegantly and thoughtfully. Marital trust and honesty colors the story as well, and Bateman and Hall cover all of these themes in one magnificently conceived kitchen scene, a scene that elevates the entire picture above what I could have ever expected. Bateman is brilliantly cast as Simon, a character whose layers get peeled back scene by scene in a steady cascade into madness. Hall and Edgerton are great too, but Bateman gets to flex muscles we rarely get to see in his typical comedic roles, and it’s a pleasant surprise. He’s got an interesting mean streak as an actor that I don’t think has been explored quite as well as Edgerton does here.

The visuals and sound design work in concert to create nail-biting suspense that doesn’t give you room to breathe. The fact that it’s a stalker story actually has an interesting effect on our experience cinematically, as we’re always scanning the frame for Gordo, constantly aware of the characters’ surroundings and the little bumps in the night (and day) that may or may not signal an impending attack. There’s one cheap scare in the whole movie, and it’s delightful. You see it coming from a mile away, but the filmmaking is so good that I guarantee at least a handful of people in the theater will drop their popcorn. This is as solid a debut as a director could hope for, and I eagerly anticipate what Edgerton will cook up next.

We welcome our biggest guest ever as we welcome Australian actor/director Joel Edgerton to the show to talk about his new psychological thriller and directorial debut, The Gift. Bernard is also joined by Dustin and Eli to talk about actors-turned-directors and share their Indie Picks of the Week. Plus, Bernard talks about how Edgerton creeped the hell out of his wife. All that and more on this week’s Way Too Indiecast!

This episode is sponsored by MUBI, an curated online cinema that brings its members a hand-picked selection of the best indie, foreign, and classic films. Try it for 30 days FREE by visiting www.mubi.com/waytooindie.

Topics

• Indie Picks of the Week (1:41)
• Actors-Turned-Directors (9:26)
• The Gift Review (29:15)
• Joel Edgerton Interview (34:45)

WTI Articles Referenced in the Podcast

Creep review
Tyrannosaur review
Unbroken review
Submarine review

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The story of Moses liberating his people from the oppressive Ramses and leading them out of Egypt to freedom is arguably one of the most famous, familiar stories of all time. It’s been told who-knows-how-many times in every medium there is, with movies being no exception (there have been at least a dozen screen adaptations). What is the purpose, then, of Ridley Scott bringing the burning bush, the plagues, and the parting of the Red Sea back to the big screen in Exodus: Gods and Kings? Does he bring anything new to the table?

Exodus‘ biggest selling point, without question, is the deluge of digital effects you’d naturally expect from a big-budget biblical epic in 2014. Never have the Plagues of Egypt looked so dazzling: millions of frogs hop and tumble over each other in the moonlight; swarms of locusts and flies are nightmarish and gross; rivers of blood look really, really…um, red. Honestly, the visuals are staggering, and the bravura plague scenes are totally convincing (especially the frogs–yuck). But it doesn’t really matter because the rest of the movie, the vessel that ferries all the CGI extravagance, is so hole-y (see what I did there?) that it sinks before the visuals can make a real impression. Scott’s retelling of the classic story simply doesn’t work, and unfortunately for the talented effects teams, it’s the difference between the film being spectacular-looking, and the film being merely expensive-looking.

The problems begin with the film’s most egregious failure, the borderline offensive casting of white people with bad spray tans as Egyptians. (I say borderline because I’ve been so numbed to these kinds of injustices by Hollywood that all I can do now is chuckle as a single tear runs down my cheek.) Christian Bale plays Moses, who was raised as a brother to the petulant, preening Ramses (Joel Edgerton), Egypt’s oppressive Pharaoh. They speak to each other in vaguely British accents because…why the hell not? Ramses’ father is played by John Turturro, and his mother is played by Sigourney Weaver. Sigourney Weaver. Sigourney freaking Weaver. And she speaks with an American accent. Wonderful.

To be fair, the blow is softened because the actors do a solid job with what they’re given here. Bale and Edgerton have a dynamic rapport, volleying chest-puffing machismo and brotherly empathy with equal intensity and fire. Bale’s Moses is, by and large, the same shepherding, wise, long-haired Jew Charlton Heston’s was, though Heston’s brio is replaced by Bale’s signature brooding and weariness. It’s one of Bale’s more rigid performances, and he perhaps shows too much restraint. Scott claims that if he had cast an actor named “Mohammed so-and-so” (his words, not mine) in the lead role, the film would have never been financed. Sad thing is, I believe him. If he was forced to plug white men into the lead roles, Bale and Edgerton were good choices. Still, it doesn’t make the white-centric casting any less wrong.

All that aside, the fundamental issue with the script is that it feels emotionally disengaged. When Moses is exiled by Ramses and finds the love of his life (María Valverde) in a small peasant village, we hardly see the couple interact. They meet and, in a blink, they’re married with child. More screen time between Bale and Valverde would have been welcome (they’re sweet together) but…dammit! We’ve got a sea to part! No time for silly things like love and tenderness! Move along, move along. That’s the thing: every time the film begins to reveal a bit of humanity in its characters, we get ripped away by the plot’s current.

The way Scott portrays Moses’ conversations with God is unique, and one of the more compelling things Exodus has going for it. God is embodied by a mischievous British preteen (Isaac Andrews) who antagonizes Moses with cryptic messages, insults, and nasty snarls. These exchanges are shot in a queasy, fever-dream haze and benefit from Scott’s acuity for existential sci-fi. To portray God as an irritable child is fascinating to me, but it’ll probably ruffle the feathers of folks dedicated to 1-for-1 bible literalness. It’s a bold move, and a good one artistically.

The Red Sea isn’t cleaved in the same way it always has been in every previous Moses movie; here, the water is displaced in a more spherical shape, like God sticks his giant thumb down into the seabed and then removes it, causing the water to rush back to the center. Other than mild deviations from scripture like this, Exodus is mostly concerned with going through the biblical motions and battering us with extravagant set pieces that, while impressive looking, aren’t supported by enough character work to be stirring. Scott probably fancies his film an insightful, radical play on the classic liberation tale, but it winds up feeling pretty unnecessary and trite, though you’ll still be wowed by the light show.

Christian Bale‘s Moses calls down a world of hurt for Joel Edgerton‘s Rhamses in the freshly released trailer for Ridley Scott‘s new biblical epic Exodus: Gods and Kings.With plenty of graphic effect, the plagues have never looked so threatening and we’re treated to previews of hail, blood red rivers, and even the parting of the Red Sea itself.

The trailer focuses on Moses and Rhamses, but we got a glimpse of Sigourney Weaver as Tuya, Rhamses mother, with plenty of Egyptian eyeliner. The film also stars Aaron Paul, Ben Kingsley, John Turturro, and Indira Varma.

We’re excited to see Scott back in his comfortable domain of historical drama, sword-and-sandal being one he’s especially good at. As long as the film stays on the Gladiator end of the spectrum and less of the Kingdom of Heaven side, we anticipate a thoroughly enjoyable and larger than life experience.

The film comes out December 12th of this year.

Kieran Darcy-Smith makes his feature film debut with his Australian indie drama Wish You Were Here, which first premiered at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. The film’s non-linear narrative style is slow to reveal itself of the mysteries behind it almost to a fault. There are some intriguing pieces of the story but the film allows too much time to pass for how little of an impact the final punch was. Having said that, Wish You Were Here is one of the most beautifully shot indie films of the year. Darcy-Smith show promise and is a director that you may want to remember in the future.

The film begins as a group of two couples are enjoying themselves for a week in Cambodia during a holiday stay. We see them living it up on the beaches and marvel the local food customs but most of all, we see them dancing and partying. While at a dance club we see them heavily drinking, smoking and consuming illegal drugs. It is not until later when they return back home that all the problems are exposed.

You can see it in the emotions of husband and wife Alice (Felicity Price) and Dave (Joel Edgerton) Flannery upon their return. The original idea for even going on the trip was to get away from their busy lifestyle ahead of their expected third child but they came back with more stress than they left with. One of the friends they went on vacation with went missing on their last day there and never made it back. This is only the beginning of what went wrong on the vacation. There is a strong sense that there is more going on than what they are letting on.

To add more fuel to the fire, Dave has a secret that he has not told his wife about yet. When his wife does find out, it has the potential to rupture their relationship. As you may expect, all of these conundrums are connected with one another as it ultimately becomes much more than just a missing person case. The film takes it’s time to bring out into the open what really went on during that holiday getaway.

Wish You Were Here is simply gorgeous to look at. From the very opening sequence to the final act, the film does a great job of utilizing cinematography. Shot from postcard worthy locations around Cambodia and Sydney, the beauty from these places serve as a sharp contrast to the unsettling story that unfolds.

Wish You Were Here takes an interesting and yet simple plot and overextends itself with too many underdeveloped subplots. These subplots get in the way for the main plot to as effective as it could have been. This leads to an ending that is not predictable but is so underwhelming that what you thought might happen ends up being more interesting than what actually does. Wish You Were Here had all the right elements but did not have the execution down.