My review of Coherence

Glib Reviews Of Recent DVD Releases

Coherence
Directed By James Ward Byrkit 

Coherence starts out as a typical old friends with the usual complicated personal histories getting together for a big dinner kind of movie. Then the lights go out, and the movie becomes quickly a suspenseful sci-fi alternate universe flick. It does so extremely well with a whip smart script and great acting from an ensemble of familiar actors mostly of the guest star, third banana variety according to imdb. But that shows you how much talent there is out there, as everyone in this is solid. One of the best ensemble pieces I have seen in a few years, is Coherence. 

The biggest name actors in the piece are in chronological hipness, Elizabeth Gracen - Amanda from Highlander Raven! (nerd swoon), Xander from Buffy The series (Nicholas Brendan,) who plays an actor named Mike who says he was in Roswell for four years in one of the best meta moments of the movie. Also on board is Max (Maury Sterling) from Homeland. 

The other actors all have good tv, movie resumes, and their characters all have interesting believable relationships with each other, and as a group. Sometimes you wonder if in these ‘friends trapped in a house movies’ these people really would be friends, or why the movie forces them together. Nice dialogue and moments from actors make this gang of underachieving approaching middle agers work.

The pacing and unfolding of the plot, basically that a passing comet has created a local blackout, and a zone with some sort of portal to random alternate worlds, that are almost like the one we are shown. The group we start with very subtly morphs into a different group as people pass through these portals and end up in different slightly different versions of their world. 


The Science-y end of what is going on is well turned exposition, as the group look for clues as to what is up with what they think at first is just one duplicate of their house, and themselves. This is a film that definitely merits a second viewing, and perhaps some discussion. It’s not too heady, in its understanding of parallel universes, but rather, approachable and believable while depicting of the kind of things people might think or do when confronted with alternate versions of their world and themselves. The ending plays out exactly as I was hoping it would. I highly recommend this film as well as an example of what you can do with almost no budget. Great low budget film making master class to be had watching and dissecting this film.

8.5 ketamine laced rescue remedies outta 10


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Nerd-Sploitation Weekend continues

Image
Glib Reviews of New Releases NerdFest Day 2 Continuing my Nerd-Sploitation festival with the almost traditional tale of of the out of control Game Master. Earlier examples of this sort of the tiny Nerdsploitation genre includes Gamers, (and it’s sequel) or any of those movies that I don't watch, that involve video games. Zero Charisma - Directed by Katie Graham , Andrew Matthews Is a surprising solid portrayal of the aging Nerd, or Fan. The main character is in many ways a painful reminder of what its like to be so obsessed with a game (or any fantasy) that it ruins the rest of your life.  Scott The GM in question ( Sam Eidson ), may in fact be a triggering presence for many gamers, or ex gamers. Be warned, the interplay of the players and GM struggling through a ridiculously overlong campaign is more realistic than the things the players do ‘in game.’ People being talked over, outside noise causing havoc with the flow of the game, the omnipresence of snack
Read more

Review of Tangerine!

Image
Glib Reviews Of Recent DVD Releases Tangerine - Directed By Sean Baker Tangerine is one of those films that ‘feels like’ it was shot chronologically. The first few scenes are a bit rough, the acting is a bit iffy, but as the characters of Sin-Dee and Alexandra walk endlessly through their drama filled Christmas Eve Day in L.A. The picture gets more gripping, the cinematography, the acting and the script all get better, more polished in a low budget way. The locations give a nice grimy seventies feel to the whole thing. Sin-Dee (Kitana Kiki Rodriguez) is especially unlikeable at the beginning of the film, her single mindedness in finding her pimp/boyfriend and the girl he ‘cheated on her’ with while she was doing a month in jail, is not terribly nuanced. The buffer of the her best friend Alexandra (Mya Taylor) trying to keep her from all the drama she is creating, while trying to hustle tickets for a show she is doing that night keeps the whole thing from being one note.
Read more

My middling review of "Night Moves" by Kelly Reichardt

Image
Glib reviews of recent DVD/Blu Ray releases. Night Moves - Directed by Kelly Reichardt This is not your father’s ‘Night Moves,’ that one is an under appreciated Arthur Penn flick with Gene Hackman. Both do crucially involve boats though. I wanted to like this film a bit more than I did. As a big fan of Reichardt’s films in general, I was looking forward to this quite a bit. It may be though my least favourite of the bunch, but that by no means says it’s a bad film, just not quite as good as the previous three films. If you like creepy atmospheric slow paced gorgeously shot in Oregon kind of movies, you will dig this. Jesse Eisenberg is at his broodingest best, here, you barely ever see under his hooded eyes, he only ever really expresses emotions over the things he perceives with horror, like the dead deer he moves from the edge of the highway to save the dead doe the dignity of not getting run over again and again, at least. The basic plot has Jesse (as Josh, commu
Read more