American Arrival
Issue #8
Hide your Riesling, FilmRunners! Maria Banson from the Brunello Bombshell Substack is crashing FilmRunner and fortifying our picks. We also have Pia back to bookend her selections with some tight insights. I made the mistake of looking over Pia’s review, so I may have been a little greasy and responded to some of her thoughts on 28 Days Later. A little about Maria:
Maria Banson is a Certified Sommelier, a “semi-retired” professional actor/musician, and the author of Brunello Bombshell. Naturally, Maria is known for her wine and movie pairings! Maria lives with her husband, award-winning director of stage and screen Enrico Banson, in the San Francisco Bay Area. When she’s not writing or studying for higher level sommelier exams, Maria enjoys listening to Verdi operas on vinyl and singing “Libiamo” while drinking Special Club Champagne… or old Brunello.
You can find Maria on Instagram with @brunellobombshell or Letterboxd at @brnllobombshell
In addition to that, check out Pia and Maria’s Substacks below or subscribe to mine.
American Psycho (2000)
Picked By
Maria Banson
Synopsis
A wealthy New York City investment banking executive, Patrick Bateman, hides his alternate psychopathic ego from his co-workers and friends as he delves deeper into his violent, hedonistic fantasies. IMDB
Director
Starring
Christian Bale, Justin Theroux, Josh Lucas
Runtime
1 hour and 42 minutes.
Trailer
Why
When Jake asked me to watch and review some movies with him, I knew immediately that I wanted to find something engaging with a great screenplay and a stylish, almost fashion forward look. Knowing that he and I shared a love of heist films and modern thrillers, my first few thoughts went to films like The Thomas Crown Affair (1999) and A Most Violent Year (2014). Then Jake happened to mention that our edition of FilmRunner would be dropping in the first week of March, and I pivoted to find a film that matched the same criteria… but directed by a woman. (International Women’s Month lasts 12 months a year, but I feel like Coralie Fargeat’s Academy Award nomination warrants a look at other female-identifying directors who have put out some phenomenal work.) And just like that, Patrick Bateman and his iconic axe came around the corner and convinced me that American Psycho (2000) perfectly fit the bill!
Arrival
Picked By
Jake
Synopsis
Linguist Louise Banks leads a team of investigators when gigantic spaceships touch down around the world. As nations teeter on the verge of global war, Banks and her crew must find a way to communicate with the extraterrestrial visitors. IMDB
Director
Starring
Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner, Forest Whitaker
Runtime
1 hour and 56 minutes.
Trailer
Why
I wanted to match Maria’s pick for International Women’s Month; however, I chose a film featuring a female lead rather than a female director. Critics’ reviews of Amy Adams’s performance alone make Arrival worthwhile. The film was nominated for eight Academy Awards and won Best Sound Editing. Based on everything I’ve read, it feels practically criminal that I haven’t seen it yet.
As a fun aside, both of our picks are directed by Canadians, which gives us a little extra CanCon as well.
🎥 Reviews of Last Week's Picks
Caution, there may be spoilers.
A Real Pain
Picked By
Pia
Synopsis
Mismatched cousins reunite for a tour through Poland to honor their beloved grandmother, but their old tensions resurface against the backdrop of their family history. IMDB
Director
Starring
Kieran Culkin, Jesse Eisenberg, Olha Bosova
Runtime
1 hour and 30 minutes.
Trailer
Pia’s Review
A Real Pain tells a seemingly unique tale, one about two cousins (Kieran Culkin as Benji and Jesse Eisenberg as David) on a heritage tour of Holocaust sites in Poland following their grandmother’s death, but at its core, the story is universal. It’s about knowing someone so well to the point where you can no longer stand but secretly want to be more like them. It’s about reconciling with shared trauma and learning to process it in different ways. It’s about learning to live with your own pain and acknowledging that you’ll never understand someone else’s pain fully even if it comes from a common place.
No matter how different David and Benji are, they still love each other. They bicker, and they approach life so differently, yet you can feel the love they have for one another throughout the entire 90 minute runtime – in the way David worries about Benji’s loneliness and the way Benji wants David to be just a bit more spontaneous. It’s hard to resist these characters and maybe even harder not to see yourself in at least one facet of their personalities.
At this point, it is obvious that Culkin’s performance is the focal point of the film’s critical acclaim – and deservedly so, even if perhaps in the wrong category – yet Eisenberg’s performance shouldn’t be overlooked either, both as an actor and a director/writer. He manages to pull off a nearly perfect 90 minutes of a touching slice of life story that’s full of heart in the way that makes you laugh one moment then reach for a tissue the next one.
A Real Pain is a simple film but that is not to say that it lacks depth. In fact, it is precisely the emotion woven into its simplicity that makes the film a total hit.
Jake’s Review
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ (five stars)
Boy howdy, this one really hits you in the feels. It’s a master class in acting by Kieran Culkin (as Benji), complemented by a great performance from Jesse Eisenberg (as David). This is my second five-star film of the year, with Conclave as the first. The humor is often subtle, interwoven with serious, heavy topics. I found myself unable to look away (though my three-month-old daughter made sure I took frequent screen breaks), and I wasn’t prepared for how much heart was poured into this film.
This is Eisenberg’s second feature film, and he truly came out swinging. It’s beautifully shot and beautifully written. His instincts in casting Culkin were spot on (or possibly his sister’s, if the reports are to be believed). The dynamic between the two cousins has real depth, driven by their respective connections to their late grandmother.
One of my favorite aspects of this film is that it doesn’t try to be overly ambitious. It’s simply a personal story about two cousins traveling through Poland—nothing more, nothing less—and it’s all the better for it.
Picked By
Jake
Synopsis
Four weeks after a mysterious, incurable virus spreads throughout the United Kingdom, a handful of survivors try to find sanctuary.
Director
Starring
Cillian Murphy, Naomie Harris, Christopher Eccleston
Runtime
1 hour and 53 minutes.
Trailer
Guest Review
28 Days Later is a film whose story I found thoroughly entertaining and thought-provoking yet one that I couldn’t fully get into due to its unique visuals.
This film is one about survival and throughout, it asks the question of what people are willing to do to survive. The answer is a pretty obvious one – anything. In a lot of ways, the film reminds us that the biggest threat to people are not some supernatural forces or monsters or even highly infectious diseases but rather other people, and so often it is completely normal people that are actively willing to choose harm for others in their attempt to save themselves.
The cinematography and the editing are where it all went wrong for me. It is frantic and shaky in a way that is reminiscent of homemade videos from that time, which I suppose was the point as it had been shot on a digital camera but felt distracting to me nevertheless. The constant use of the Dutch angle felt almost silly, like a film student experimenting immediately after learning about it in class.
Admittedly, as much as I personally disliked how the film looked, it all ties well into the story and its franticness, allowing the viewer to experience a bit of the chaos that’s unfolding on the screen. And to be fair, I didn’t find all visuals to be horrible. In fact, the early sequence of Cillian Murphy walking through a deserted Central London is beautiful and atmospheric, and there is a lot of fun in it for anyone who’s ever been to London – these streets are usually some of the most packed streets in the world.
Truthfully, there is a lot to like about 28 Days Later. It’s a film that, in my opinion, very accurately portrays the dark side of humanity and one that makes you feel the chaos of its environment deeply. To say that watching was a fully comfortable experience would be a lie, but perhaps that’s exactly how the director wanted us to feel.
Jake’s Review
⭐⭐⭐⭐✨ (four and a half stars)
I made the mistake of reading Pia’s review before writing my own. Up until this point, I’d successfully avoided doing that. This was one of my favorite films of all time, and I couldn’t believe Pia didn’t connect with it the way I did! Then I rewatched it. The cinematography did not age well. Pia was right! Strangely, the latter half of the film looked better than the first. This made me curious, so I did some digging and unearthed a bit of fun film history.
It turns out they couldn’t afford to film those scenes in London and rent the necessary cameras. To solve this, they opted to shoot with the Canon XL1 Digital Camcorder. In doing so, the film’s budget constraints inadvertently made it a pioneer in digital filmmaking. Despite how it actually looked, people at the time were calling it the “death of film.” Twenty years later, The Creator was shot on the Sony FX3, so maybe they weren’t far off.
Going back to the story: while I still loved it, I’m not sure the nostalgia held up under a fresh lens. I found a couple of exchanges a little corny, and there were minor plot elements that didn’t quite make sense. That said, the core of the film remains great. Movies explore what it is to be human, and zombie movies delve into some of the rawest aspects. Getting to know who the soldiers really are is stomach-turning, and I found it interesting how little Boyle distinguishes the soldiers—arguably the worst of humanity—from the infected. Even Major Henry West, who could be considered the main antagonist, had this quote:
People killing people, which is much what I saw in the four weeks before infection, and the four weeks before that, and before that, and as far back as I care to remember.
The way he saw it, not much had changed before the infection, and not much would change after. This mindset largely serves as a foil to the survivors, who have also done difficult things but still choose kindness whenever possible.
Love or hate the editing, please watch this film as it revitalized the entire genre upon release.
🖋 Closing Note
Thanks for reading!
For more content about films across different mediums, please check out The First Picture House.
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Thanks again for having me. I loved doing this, it was so much fun! Looking forward to reading yours and Maria’s reviews in the next issue!